


In our bedrooms after the war

by LoonyLuna



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Eventual Smut, HP: EWE, Multi, POV Multiple, Romance, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-19 11:03:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1467085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLuna/pseuds/LoonyLuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War was over and all they had to do now was go back to Hogwarts and pick up the pieces of their former lives. However, the task proves to be harder then they thought as physical and emotional scars begin to sear their connections to their former selves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. His own personal aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a very shippy fic. First, I wanted to write some Dramione. Then, I started looking for something plotty with Ginny and Luna, but couldn't find it. Then I decided to write about them too. Then it became something else. The ships are still there, but I guess I'm trying to broaden my horizons a little, writing about some other characters and post-war Wizarding Britain in general. Hope it works! :)
> 
> This is my first fic, so, please, be patient. Also, English is not my native tongue and writing this fic has become sort of a way to practice. Be patient about mistakes, general weirdness and terms that are not part of UK-English. Feel free to point them out, though!
> 
> The title is a reference to an album/song by Stars. It's pretty good. You should look it up!

Years before, when war was just a memory of a not so distant past and a promise of glory for the near future, he had been happy and full of confidence. A smug, rich little boy, roaming through the corridors of Hogwarts under the protection of his father's name and the firm belief that he belonged to a higher caste meant to rule all others, inferior in blood and soul. Even when the first spells were fired on places he'd known all so well – the schoolyard, his father's workplace – he remained sheltered within the walls his family and friends had built for him. It was only when he became a soldier that things started to change.

He was still a boy, then, though not so rich and certainly not so little as he used to be. In the course of a summer, he had grown more than in 15 years of his life. He had duties that surpassed the ones of his classmates – even the ones of his teachers –, and for that, he hated them. However, no matter how many murders they ordered him to commit, he was still just a boy – a frightened, lost boy, unsure of all the notions of superiority that had been put in his head now that he was face to face with bloodshed.

But he had orders to follow, and choosing not to obey them would cost him his life and the lives of his parents. There was no time to ask questions. There was no time to think of how much he actually hated those other children, born to families whose names and bloodlines he didn't recognize, or to spare a single thought to everything he owed to that “demented old wizard” standing at the tip of his wand. In the end, however, he was unable to escape these doubts, and couldn't do what was asked of him. Protected by his mother and his teacher, he had remained a child, despite the trail of blood he'd left behind.

Throughout the war, he had tried to grow up, to make his own choices, but still his fears held him back. Unable to become the killer he needed to be in order to protect his family, and incapable of leaving it all behind to help put a halt to the genocide he now despised himself for ever wanting, he had simply stayed there, quivering and mumbling words of uncertainty as the kids he used to taunt between Potions and Divination were tortured before his eyes.

He'd ran up to the last minute. Cowered beside his mother and father, ashamed and afraid of what the future held for them. The most he could manage was a sigh of relieve as he saw the faces of those not killed in battle. Potter was there, and so was the little Weasley girl, along with her brute of a brother (though a punch in the face was the least he deserved). Longbottom limped across the Great Hall, his face covered in dirt, blood and bravery like no one had thought him capable of. Granger ran from wounded to wounded, trying to make herself useful – they had not succeeded in breaking her. Not even Bellatrix Lestrange had been able to destroy her courage and determination. Trapped in his mother's embrace, he envied her. For all the bruises she would carry for the rest of her life, shame was not on the list.

Now, six months after that final battle, he still lowered his head when he passed her in the halls. They had escaped Azkaban, him and his parents. The Malfoys were partially pardoned due to the shift in their position in the last moments of Voldemort's reign, though a significant amount of the family fortune was confiscated by the Ministry of Magic to create a fund for the children orphaned by the war. Unlike his housemates, that were mostly forgiven for their crimes based on their age, Draco was tried as an adult for having been marked as a Death Eater – a decision that he couldn't help but question, for he could not understand how the bloodlust of some Slytherins was more acceptable than his Dark Mark.

Still, they had allowed him to remain free and finish his education at Hogwarts, a desire that was more his parents' than his own. After all that had happened, all that he had seen and done, he would've been happy to hide in a room somewhere, away from the torture camp that had become his childhood home, and never look at the face of any of the boys and girls he had seen transfigured by war. They were all men and women, now – broken and traumatized, but no longer children who couldn't stand by their own beliefs. He, on the other hand, had remained unable to do so. He had remained a boy when it was his turn to grow up. For this, he would face the consequences.

* * *

Crabbe's things were not by his bed anymore. Neither were Goyle's, but for completely different reasons. Gregory had merely decided to put an end to his academic career, doomed from the very beginning, while Vincent... Stupid, stupid Vincent. How could you think even for a second that _thinking_ was your forte? Had you not tried to trace your own strategies, your bed would not have been taken by some sixth year student that scattered pieces of food and clothing all over the floor. It almost made Draco feel sorry for the house-elves.

Almost every seventh year dorm had a sixth year or two, now. The Death Eaters' rule of the school had been deemed unfit by the Ministry and all the students were required to retake their classes. Those who were already of age by the time the war started, and that had decided to abandon their education, were given a choice to come back. Along with the new first years and the muggle-borns that weren't allowed to attend Hogwarts after the fall of the Ministry, the school was even more crowded than usual, and some arrangements had to be made so that everyone had a place to sleep. First year rooms were enlarged by magic to fit the double amount of children, and empty beds were given to younger students. The only face in his dorm Draco recognized from his first arrival at Hogwarts was the one of Blaise Zabini, who was sleeping quietly with a book about the history of the Holyhead Harpies over his chest.

Draco suffocated under the absence of his former bodyguards. Crabbe and Goyle had never been his friends, not really. He had never been able to share his passions and fears with them. They were too dense to understand, Draco used to tell himself. But the truth was they didn't care about him, only the power attached to his family name. And Draco had always been too much of a coward to risk tainting that image with his uncertainties. Still, Crabbe and Goyle had been the closest he'd ever had to an actual friendship, and being without them made him feel out of place at the Slytherin dorm.

The Common Room was no better. Groups of kids chattering and running around made him feel even lonelier than in the silence of the bedroom. Most of the other students avoided him nowadays. Some muttered behind his back about the horrors that had taken place at the Manor and how the Malfoys had never actually turned against the Dark Lord. Such hypocrites, Draco thought. As if their families had taken no part on the war whatsoever. As if they hadn't dreamt of ridding the wizarding world of mudbloods, of turning all muggles into slaves, of being marked by Voldemort just like he had been. Their hands might be clean, but their minds were just as filthy as any Death Eater's.

And then there were the ones that talked about how Lucius Malfoy had lost his position at the Ministry, how he'd been drained of his money, how Narcissa was seen wearing the same dress twice in the past couple of months. These gossipers Draco could respect. At least they didn't pretend to be righteous – their concerns remained as shallow as they'd always been. However, the fact that he didn't deem them to be as pathetic as the others didn't mean he was willing to listen to their whispers.

He roamed through the hallways, looking for somewhere to rest, away from the voices that insisted upon chasing him, especially the ones that belonged not to his classmates, but to his own past. But each and every corner of the castle seemed to harbour either groups of talkative witches and wizards or memories he couldn't bare to face. Eventually, Draco found himself in the library. It seemed empty enough, and even though the recent past could still be sensed on the empty bookshelves that'd lost its occupants to censorship or the fire of battle, it did not hold a too emotional meaning to him. Unlike the Great Hall and the Room of Requirement, he hadn't been there during the war. Unlike the Slytherin dorm, it didn't remind him of the ones he had lost. Tired from his search for an unblemished place to stay, he let his body fall on a chair in the Study Hall and rested his head on the wooden table. A couple of minutes later, he fell asleep.


	2. Triggered memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, these are the chapters I had so far. One from Draco's POV, and one from Hermione's, way longer than the first one. I've started working on the next chapters and hopefully we will have a Luna POV very soon. \o/

“Is this in Russian?”, Hermione asked, pulling a thick, heavy book from one of the boxes near Madam Pince's desk. Faded, golden letters of what seemed to be the Cyrillic alphabet were spread across the cover.

“Well, it looks like it, yes.” Luna picked up the Babel glasses Professor Flitwick had lent her and took the book from Hermione's hands. “Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Soviet Union, Volume Two: Lysenkoism and Its Effects on Herbology. Alexei Volkov. Yes, I think it is Russian!”.

Hermione let out a sigh. “Madam Pince, we've got a book in Russian, here.”

“What's the subject?” The librarian's voice came from behind one of the few bookshelves that were already filled up to the top.

“Herbology.”

“The books in foreign languages are piled up against a wall near the Study Hall. I'm dividing them by subject, but I think this is the first one on Herbology. Make a new pile for Herbology books, would you?”

Hermione grabbed the book back from Luna and crossed the maze that was the library of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An unapologetic lover of books, she'd learned her way around the room on her first year of magical education. And it was due to her passion for the place and all the knowledge it gathered that she had joined Madam Pince in the efforts to get the library back to its former glory, a job that was proving to be harder than she had thought. Luna was the only other member of the restoration team, and had actually been the one to invite Hermione to help. She was on her second day on the task, while her two partners were already into their second week. Professor Flitwick had also lent a hand by allowing them to use his Babel glasses and promising that he would try to get some more for general use. It was all he could do, since the post-war arrangements had the Heads of Houses up to their necks in work. As for the rest of the students, no one else seemed that interested. Even the Ravenclaws were happy to just complain about the current state of the library without actually doing anything to change it, which made Hermione resent them greatly.

The work consisted on sorting and repairing the damaged books, making contacts and recovering copies that might have been hidden by someone on the resistance, and, mainly, going through the numerous donations that had arrived from countries in every continent. Even the shortest of wars have their economical toll, and the school couldn't afford to replace all the books that had been destroyed on battle and on the purges carried out by the Death Eaters. When word got around that the finest centre of wizarding education in the world was having trouble recovering from its fight against the Dark Forces, the owls started to arrive, with books and more books trapped to their feet. Some of them in foreign languages. At least one of them in Russian.

On the piles next to the Study Hall, Hermione was able to recognize words written in Spanish, French, Portuguese, German... She had some trouble identifying the ones in different alphabets – was that Japanese or Korean? –, but one of them was definitely in Arabic. Little pieces of paper floated above the books. Written in Madam Pince sharp handwriting, they classified the books according to their subjects. Muggle Studies had the biggest stack, and Hermione noticed that another one had already started to form. Defence Against the Dark Arts came in close second, followed by History of Magic. She let her mind wander for a while, thinking about the amount of hate necessary for someone to destroy books, research, knowledge. Even worse: the amount of hate necessary for someone to destroy recordings of their own history. It was not something new to her; not some bizarre particularity of wizarding wars that she was shocked to find out – in Muggle history, there had never been even one decade where books were not being burned somewhere. Still, there was something about it that never failed to disturb her. For a second, she thought about Bellatrix and the writing forever engraved in her left arm; about how it was meant to erase any notion that Hermione could be the brilliant witch that she was; about how that woman hated her so much that killing would never be enough: the sheer memory of Hermione Granger had to disappear.

Pushing those thoughts away, Hermione wrote “Herbology” on a piece of parchment and charmed it so that it would float above the Russian book. That was when she caught sight of someone sleeping on one of the tables on the Study Hall.

It looked like it was a boy. A student, judging by the robes. However, she couldn't make out his features from the position his head rested on the table, his face entirely covered by his arms. She could only see the white-blond hair that could belong to numerous other kids, and it was only when her hands were already on his shoulder that she realized who it was. Her lips had started muttering a “Excuse me” when the boy raised one of his hands to brush away her touch. Under his sleeve, she could see a black scar tissue that rendered her mouth dry. She quickly withdrew her hand when Draco Malfoy lifted his head to look at her.

It took her a long while to gather the strength to speak again. It wasn't that she was afraid of him. Not exactly. She was brave; a Gryffindor. But the war was over, and so was her adrenaline, and she was overcome by the sight of that Dark Mark, of a former Death Eater, of someone who had been present when she had been so viciously tortured.

“You can't sleep here”, she finally said.

“Why not?”, he replied, frowning and shifting in the chair. “It's not like I'm getting in someone's way...”

“You're getting in my way.” It came out more desperate than she had expected. She took a deep breath before speaking again. “You can't sleep here.”

Seconds that felt like hours passed by until he let out a snort and got up to leave.

“Fine”, he said. “There aren't even any fucking books in this fucking library...”, she thought she heard him mumble.

Her hands were shaking, she realized. Her shoulders, tense. She closed her eyes and began counting to ten, trying to calm herself down before getting back to work. It was not that bad, she said to herself. It could have been worse. Luna could've been there with her. Her friend had never quite recovered from her days at the Malfoy Manor, and she wasn't sure she would be able to handle the shared experience. Yes, given the circumstances, it was not that bad.

She was already starting to relax when his voice rang once more in her ears, making her muscles tense again.

“What on Merlin's name are you doing here, Granger?” He was standing by the piles Madam Pince had made. “Making a stair out of useless books?”

“We're reorganizing the library”, she answered, dryly, walking towards the door. “Those books are donations that came from other countries.”

“And _what_ are we supposed to do with them? I can't even make out the letters on some of these!”

 _That's because you're an idiot, Malfoy_. But she knew that wasn't true. Most of the students in Hogwarts couldn't speak a foreign language to save their lives, as was exemplified by the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Even she couldn't speak anything besides English and some French she had learned from Fleur. Maybe a couple of words in Bulgarian that she'd picked up from Krum.

“Professor Flitwick is going to make Babel glasses so that the books can be consulted in the library”, she said.

“ _Babel glasses?_ ”

“Yes.” She managed a little smile on the corner of her mouth. That was more like her former self – knowing more than those around her and explaining things to them. “They translate written words from any language to the one of the reader...”

“Yes, Granger, literally _everyone_ knows what Babel glasses are”, he said with a hint of impatience, and the little smile vanished from Hermione's lips: up to the day before, she had never heard of Babel glasses. “What I meant is that they are very hard to make. They require very intricate magic and constant maintenance so that they are always up to date with the languages. It's easier to pay translators!”

“Well, yes... b-but he's only making a couple for limited use...”, she stammered, her embarrassment for not knowing what Babel glasses were mixing with the creeping memories that resurfaced every time Malfoy opened his mouth.

“But why bother? Why do we even have so many books that aren't in English in the first place?”

“Because your lot destroyed the ones that were.” Hermione's eyes widened in relief when she saw Madam Pince coming out from Merlin knows where to deliver that much needed scolding to Malfoy. It wasn't without pleasure that she gazed at the boy's face, trying to hold its usual expression of contempt and superiority even though his body seemed to shrink at each word uttered by the librarian. “The books we have here were kindly donated by friends of Hogwarts from all around the globe so that our students can have enough research material, at least while we cannot replace all that Voldemort and his minions destroyed. That one, right there?”, she said, pointing at the book in Arabic Hermione had noticed before. “That one came from the Cairo Academy of Magical Arts. They sent us a whole box with books on subjects that range from Divination to History of Quidditch. Those five in French, on the Care of Magical Creatures pile? They came from their very own author, Pierre de la Chambre, a former Beauxbatons student and Tri-Wizard Tournament champion. They are all trying to help us because they know we need it. Otherwise, we would be stuck with Death Eater-approved literature and maybe one or two books we would be able to buy with the money that isn't being used to rebuild the rest of Wizarding Britain.”

Malfoy lowered his head. Looking closely, Hermione could see the shame that was beginning to taint the pride in his eyes, and could even make out the traces of his teeth biting his inner cheeks. He seemed like he wanted to crawl into himself, and, avoiding the librarian's look, he muttered something that sounded like “They were not my lot”.

“Excuse me?”, said Madam Pince, irritated.

After a brief moment of silence, he answered: “I said I'm sorry. That's all.”

Madam Pince nodded. It looked like she knew very well that he had said something else entirely and thought it was wise of him to change his mind. “Yes, very well... Like Miss Granger said, you cannot sleep in here. This is a library, not your bedroom. Leave.”

He did as he was told. No complains, threats, no snarky comments. He merely left. For the first time in all her years of Hogwarts, Hermione was happy to witness the librarian's famous bad temper.

* * *

At night, in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione lied on Ron's lap while he had a heated discussion with Harry and Ginny about something that happened during Quidditch practice. Apparently, they couldn't decide about a new game strategy for the team. She wouldn't know. She couldn't hear a word of what they were saying. Neither could she hear the voices of Neville and Dean, moving their mouths over some book, right on the opposite couch, nor Parvati's loud shriek when a first year boy threw a snail down her robes. She couldn't hear anything. She had been enveloped by a strange mist, that allowed her to see everything and everyone around her, but made all sound blurry and distant – she knew they were there, the voices, and she could even make out their shapes if she tried really hard, but for the most part, it was all just noise.

From the moment she recognized the white-blond hair in the library, Hermione had been caught on an ever growing haze. It began with the memory of war, of the moments after the final battle, of the lifeless bodies of her friends covering the ground of the Great Hall. Then it was the memory of imprisonment. The memory of torture. The memory of the same white-blond hair and the same grey eyes and the same pale figure standing next to her as Bellatrix opened wounds on the shape of letters on her arm: M, U, D, B...

Then it was something else entirely: it was the thought of her parents, of how she had to erase herself from their lives, subsequently erasing them of hers. She didn't know where they were, or if they would ever meet again. The Ministry had assembled a small team to look for them, with the personnel they could spare and a few contacts abroad – one of the _perks_ of being a war hero, friends with the Boy Who Lived, though she wasn't sure “perks” was the right word to describe it. Maybe it was for the best that they hadn't yet been found. Maybe she should let them be – let them remain oblivious to the horrors of the past year. Why should they face the traumas and the scars of the daughter they were unable to protect when they could live happily ever after in some island on the Pacific? Perhaps they would even have another daughter, some day. Perhaps they would even name her...

“Hermione? Hermione?”, Ron's voice slowly dragged her out of her head. “Are you alright?”

She got up from her boyfriend's lap and put on a little smile before lying: “Yeah! Why wouldn't I be?”

“Well... I don't know. But it seemed like you weren't even listening to us.”

“Yeah, no, I'm... I'm alright. Just a bit tired, that's all. Think I'll go to bed, now.”

“'Mione...”

“Everything is fine, Ron. I swear.”

Ginny tugged her hand lightly as she got off the couch, but Hermione pushed it away, glancing back with her best fake reassuring smile. Under the concerned looks of her friends, she walked towards the dorm, her ears ringing with the delighted shrieks of Bellatrix, the annoying remarks of Draco Malfoy and the joyous laughter of her oblivious parents. For the first time since the end of the war, she felt like maybe she had no place in this world anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I used book-canon when I was talking about Crabbe and Goyle, and that's what I intend to follow, so I feel like I should explain why I'm using film-canon regarding Hermione being tortured by Bellatrix. I find the torture scene in DH-1 very powerful, much more that a simple Cruciatus curse. Having something carved on your skin is very reminiscent to the way the nazis tattooed numbers on their prisoners forearms, or the way slave owners branded their slaves, which emphasizes the cruelty of Voldemort and the Death Eaters. To put it simply: I like the movie version better.
> 
> Oh, and I hope you enjoyed my references and inner jokes with myself up there. :)


	3. To keep the Nargles away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took longer than I expected!  
> Anyway, here's Luna's first POV chapter. I don't know if it's exactly how I wanted it to be, since I had a very busy week and little time to write and edit, so maybe things ended up a little rushed. But I do hope you like it! =)
> 
> Oh, and thanks a lot to everyone that left comments on the last chapter! I'm really glad you enjoyed it! <3

Every morning since she had been admitted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Luna Lovegood stood in front of the bedroom mirror and softly brushed her golden hair one hundred times, just like her mother had taught her. Sometimes, if she closed her eyes, she could even feel her mother's gentle touch on her head. As a child, she used those fake caresses whenever she felt alone. At school, they had become part of her daily routine. They were now one of her little mementos of home, like her butterbeer cork necklace, her Dirigible plum earrings, and the Nargles they were supposed to repel.

The mischievous little creatures her father often warned her about were not as common at the Lovegood residence as they were at the castle. It was a good thing she had her amulets with her. But even though they could be a nuisance, Luna was glad to find signs of their presence at Hogwarts. Far from home, with almost no one to talk to, they made her feel comfortable, like she was still in her sitting room, discussing _The Quibbler_ 's next cover story with her father.

Ever since the end of the war and the beginning of the new school year, however, Luna had noticed that the Nargles had started to make themselves scarce. They were still there, she kept telling herself, but it was getting harder and harder to come across traces of their activity. For starters, they'd stopped hiding her shoes during the night. For the first time ever since she was 11 years old, Luna had been able to go to class every day without touching the castle's cold stone floor with her skin. Likewise, she no longer had to rewrite any papers in a hurry, as the originals were always where she'd left them. Therefore, Luna was starting to think that maybe Nargles had been on Lord Voldemort's hate-list, and had been driven away from the school during his reign. This pained her immensely: as great as it was not to have her things stolen, the Nargles were a part of her life, and she missed them, somehow. She always spared them a minute of silence before leaving the Ravenclaw dorm.

But there was no time for grief on that sunny Friday morning.

In her second time as a sixth year student, Friday had become Luna's favourite day of the week. On her first period, she had Divination with Professor Trelawney, a subject she found extremely interesting, though often inaccurate if left in the wrong hands, and in which her open mind and imagination made sure she excelled. Then, she had Defence Against the Dark Arts with Gryffindor's new Head of House, Professor David Pennyworth, a muggleborn wizard she admired for his kindness and bravery during the war. It was said he had been taken to Azkaban not only because of his blood status, but for being part of a resistance organization that offered safe hiding places for muggleborn children and their families. It was also said he had endured tortures crueller than anyone could imagine, but Luna didn't pay much attention to that part of the story. Unlike her classmates, that would point and whisper at the professor whenever they saw him, she thought it was somewhat sad that people would think of him not as a great man, but as a wounded body.

But it wasn't her subject of expertise nor her favourite teacher that made that Friday so special. Usually, after all her classes were over, Luna would have lunch and spend her free afternoon at the library, helping out Madam Pince. Somewhere around 5 p.m., Hermione would show up, right after her NEWT-level Potions class, and the three of them would sort out books until supper time. On that day, however, she would leave as soon as Hermione got there. She had an appointment at the Quidditch field.

Luna wasn't quite sure why Ginny had sought her out when she could've gone to anyone at the Gryffindor team to help her practice, but she was more than happy to lend a hand to a friend in need. Besides, there were few things in this world that made Luna Lovegood happier than seeing Ginny Weasley fly: up on that broomstick, she was a mixture of grace and power, her red hair against the wind almost like a blazing flame. It was a vision like no other; a vision that populated the entirety of Luna's mind when she stepped foot in the library and was greeted by the voice of an exasperated Draco Malfoy.

“What have I done _now_?”

“Don't shove the books into tiny spaces just because you think they will fit! Are you trying to destroy them all over again?”, answered an even more irritated Madam Pince before turning to look at the door. “Miss Lovegood! Thank Merlin you're here! Come help put those books up before I lose my mind with this... this... _illiterate ape_!”

Draco snorted and shot Madam Pince a disdainful look that he then turned to Luna as she walked towards them. She could feel the two cold grey orbs following her, making her feel ashamed and small for reasons she couldn't quite put together – or didn't want to. For a second, she saw herself inside a small, dirty, windowless room, curled up on the floor, a pair of long, lean legs standing in front of her and the same pair of eyes, disgusted and full of pity, hovering above her head. In the present as well as in her memory, she tried to look away, but Draco's gaze kept pulling her back.

“Now, Miss Lovegood, these are all extra-curricular books of first year level History of Magic. You've been doing work here for quite a while, now, and I trust that you know the rules, so I'll leave you to it and take _this one_ to cataloguing. Hope he'll do less damage over there. Call me as soon as you're done, and I'll show you to your next task, yes?” Luna nodded as Madam Pince guided a very displeased Draco to the other side of the library. He looked like he didn't want to be there, and Luna couldn't understand why he was there in the first place.

She thought of the Nargles. She had no idea why she was thinking about Nargles. She had forgotten all about them in face of the promise of an afternoon with Ginny, and now they were suddenly back. She couldn't begin to explain why. And it bothered her. For the first time, thinking about Nargles was something that bothered her, and that she couldn't stop doing no matter how hard she tried. Perceptive, creative and bright, a true Ravenclaw child if there ever was one, Luna couldn't understand a single thing that was happening in her brain.

She never got to call Madam Pince. Without noticing it, Luna put up the books as lazily as was humanly possible, her mind drifting from one strange thought to another. Maybe the Nargles had found a way to mess up with her head because she hadn't paid her respects that morning. Maybe she was finally becoming the crazy girl everyone else seemed to think she was. Those ideas bugged her for hours, until Hermione showed up, asking for Madam Pince.

“She's on the cataloguing session. With Draco Malfoy.”

“ _What?_ ” Hermione looked – and sounded – utterly shocked. “What is he doing here?”

“Helping. Apparently.” Luna spent a couple of seconds looking into the distance as Hermione tried to gather words to express her confusion. Then she remembered, and scolded herself for having forgotten: “Hermione, I have to go.”

“Why? Is it because of Malfoy?”, asked Hermione, resting one of her hands on Luna's shoulder.

“No, no, it's not Malfoy”, said Luna in a reassuring tone. “Ginny asked me for help with this thing and I said yes, so... I have to go, now.”

With a profound look of concern in her eyes, Hermione nodded and said goodbye to her friend.

She hadn't lied. Draco Malfoy was not the reason she had to leave early, and Ginny was really waiting for her. But if Hermione's question had referred to her current state of mind instead of the reasons she couldn't stay, that answer would've been way more complicated.

In a way, it wasn't Malfoy, she supposed. Her mind kept going on and on about Nargles, and Malfoy had nothing to do with them. He had only been present in her thoughts for a couple of minutes, when she arrived at the library. Then he was replaced.

On the other hand, however, it was only after seeing him that she became so distressed, to the point of almost forgetting the one thing she had been waiting for all day. Still, she couldn't see the connection between Malfoy's cold gaze and the tricky little creatures that used to make her feel warm. Or maybe, deep down, she could, but would rather remain ignorant.

Luna knew there was grass under her feet – she could hear it crunching as she walked. She could also hear the voices of the other students and feel the wind that blew from the Forbidden Forest. All around her, Hogwarts was bursting with life, regaining a strength and an energy that had been completely gone only months before. But Luna knew that something was missing. And it was still missing when she got to the Quidditch field and saw Ginny walking towards her, a broomstick on each hand, asking what had happened, why did she look so gloomy.

The answer came automatically to her lips, like it had been pulled out by Veritaserum. There it was, out in the open, in a way that she had never been capable of telling herself: “I don't think the Nargles were the ones stealing my shoes.”

“Really?" Ginny's tone wasn't mocking, but it did have a hint of amusement. Like she had been waiting for Luna to discover a secret that had already been imparted to everyone else. She moved her lips slowly and widened her eyes, the way one might talk to a child.

Luna tried not to communicate how much sadness Ginny's reaction made her feel. It wasn't like she was oblivious to what other people thought of her, with children calling her Loony and grown-ups often talking to her like she was not entirely sane. It was not fair to make her best friend feel bad for acting in a way that had become so ordinary to everyone else, so she smiled. From Ginny's embarrassed reaction, she gathered it hadn't been convincing enough.

“Sorry...”

“That's okay. I'm quite used to it, by now.”

“Yes, well, that doesn't exactly make it better, does it?” Ginny's face was almost as red as her hair, and she tried to hide it by staring at the floor.

"It's okay, Ginny. Really."

Ginny spent almost an entire minute without saying a word, stuck in the exact same position, with the exception of her feet, that moved nervously from one side to the other. When she finally spoke again, she had a shy smile on her lips:

“Tell you what: I can practice another time. Besides, how long has it been since the last time you've flown?” She giggled, and Luna's cheeks blushed a little. “Why don't we go out for a drink? Just the two of us. The you can tell me all about the Nargles and your shoes.”

Luna's pained smile widened and became one of sincere glee. If anything, at least Ginny was trying to cheer her up. “Yeah, I'd love to! I mean, if we could. It's Friday, we're not even close to Hogsmeade weekend, and we're only sixth years. They would never let us out.”

“Who says anyone has to _let us_ do anything?” Ginny had a proper devilish grin on her lips, and a look that was enough to get the whole Ministry chasing her down. “Harry has showed me all the secret passageways to Hogsmeade. Not to mention I grew up with Fred and George. One learns a thing or two from brothers like those.”

It was as if a small needle had punctured a hole into Luna's heart when Ginny mentioned the name of her boyfriend. She could only imagine on what circumstances Harry had showed Ginny _all the secret passageways to Hogsmeade –_ and for the first time in her life, Luna found her imagination to be very much unwanted. This time, however, Ginny could not see the sorrow in her eyes, as she kept on talking like nothing had happened.

“So, what do you say? We go to our rooms, get out of these uniforms and into something that may draw less attention to us, and meet at the entrance hall at about 20 minutes?”

Ginny sounded genuinely giddy, and Luna couldn't help but feel excited by the prospect of a night out in the company of her beautiful red-headed friend, and she really did need help sorting herself out. So she discarded all the obstacles that presented themselves in the form of boyfriends and strange, melancholic thoughts and nodded in agreement. In all truth, there was no Nargle and no Harry Potter that could've stopped Luna from saying yes.


	4. Secret passages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first: thanks to the people that left kudos! I'm really glad you liked it! <3
> 
> And now... the chapter!

Only a handful of the original passageways to Hogsmeade remained intact after the war. Aberforth had closed the Hog's Head's connection to the Room of Requirement the minute he left to fight – “No matter how this ends, I won't need any more students popping out of my sister's portrait”, he reportedly said as the last child jumped into the bar and rushed out the door –, and many others had been closed by Dumbledore himself when Voldemort and his followers became an imminent peril, or by the Death Eaters, after they took control of the school. The few ones left were carefully guarded by Filch and Mrs. Norris.

But of course, to Headmistress McGonagall's great chagrin, students were already researching new ways to get out of Hogwarts unnoticed. And there was also the matter that the caretaker and his cat had a whole school to monitor, and they were not able to be in more than two places at the same time. Even a skilful wizard would have a hard time with such a spell, let alone Filch, who had more than a little trouble with magic.

It was through one of those unguarded secret doors that Ginny and Luna made their way to the wizarding village near the castle. Enclosed in a small dead end hallway near the Gryffindor tower, the passage opened much like the one at the Leaky Cauldron. The only difference was that the bricks had to be tapped at the rhythm of an old, dirty tune called “The House Elf and the Unicorn”, that Fred and George used to sing at family parties, when both their parents were usually too drunk not to laugh. The portal led to a long sled, that spit them out through what seemed to be just another one of Hogsmeade's gutters, at the end of an alleyway. An old man, lying on the floor with a bottle of booze held tight against his chest, looked startled at the two of them.

“Blimey! You're girls, now!”, he said. Even more surprised, he pointed at Luna and let out another exclamation before passing out: “And her hair is not red!”

Stifling their giggles so not to wake the man up, the two girls left the alley, Ginny leading the way, always making sure that there was no one that could tell on them around. And it was a good thing that she was the one in charge! Luna would've blown their cover in a second: as they were passing by The Three Broomsticks', she turned to open the pub's door, and Ginny had to pull her back into another deserted alleyway before anyone laid eyes on them.

“No, not there! Madam Rosmertta is too close to McGonagall. She'd surely rat us out”, scolded Ginny. “Besides, there's no way she's going to let us drink anything but Butterbeer, and I think we need something stronger”, she added with a smirk.

“Well, where are we going, then?” The puzzled expression on Luna's face made Ginny extremely proud of herself: confusing Luna Lovegood was definitely not an easy task. Taking her friend's hand, she merely smiled and got them back on their way.

As they ventured further and further into the small village, Luna looked more and more baffled by everything around her. In a way, she reminded Ginny a little bit of herself on the first time Harry had brought her there outside of a visiting weekend. She'd been completely taken aback by how different the place seemed. The houses that opened their doors only after the sun had set, the drunk men being flown out of bars by owners that could not take them anymore, the groups of young witches and wizards laughing and looking for the first pub of the night – in the middle of all that chaos, Ginny had felt lost. After a couple of trips like that first one, however, she'd found her place in the mess that was Hogsmeade at night, and now she walked with certainty through the streets that became something else entirely after the students left for the safety of the castle.

Safety... Ginny lingered on that word for a while. During the war, when most of her friends were in hiding or being tortured in Azkaban, she had been among the ones who had remained within the safety of the castle walls. However, she hadn't felt safe at all. Even now, there were times she felt a chill on her spine in the middle of class or going from the dorm to Quidditch practice. She'd lost track of how many times she'd helped a hurt first year get back on their feet after a Cruciatus curse, and how many times she had been on the receiving end of that same spell. Or how many times she'd wanted to cast it, just so that the Carrows wouldn't have a reason to hurt her... But she couldn't. Alongside Neville, she'd become the one the other students – and, sometimes, the teachers – would look to for strength. Besides, who was she kidding? There would never come a day the Carrows wouldn't find a reason to hurt her.

“Oh, you're taking me to the Hog's Head!” Luna's voice took Ginny completely by surprise. Her little flashback had made her miss the moment the other girl's face lost its puzzled expression as she recognized their surroundings.

“That took you long enough! I thought Ravenclaws were supposed to be smart”, Ginny said with a smile, shaking her memories away.

“Well, I'm not exactly at my best today”, Luna replied, and Ginny's smile dissolved into laughter as she pushed open the bar's door.

Someone that didn't know the Hog's Head like they did might have wrongly attributed the lack of costumers to the time of the day. _It's still too early for bars to be full_ , they might say. However, this was not Ginny and Luna's first time at Aberforth Dumbledore's inn, and they knew very well they should not expect a crowd of loud boys and girls to show up at its doors. Everyone knew of Aberforth's story with the goat he tried to use “inappropriate charms” on, and he had a terrible reputation even among the filthiest members of wizarding society. Therefore, only a handful of people dared to go to the Head for a night out. At that moment, for instance, the only tables occupied were the one under the stairs, where a very old lady with a sunflower on her head was sleeping, and one at the back, where a man carefully dressed in torn clothes whispered words to an enchanted quill, a silencing spell probably cast around him to keep away possible plagiarizers.

After a quick discussion, Ginny was convinced that no one they knew ever passed by that part of Hogsmeade and the two of them settled for a place near the window. Luna had just taken her seat when Aberforth came walking towards them.

“Shouldn't you two be at school?”

“Hi, there, Aberforth!”, Ginny greeted. “Bring us two glasses of Firewhisky, would you?”

“Well, I'm not sure if I would”, he said, looking disapprovingly at the red-headed girl. “You're minors, and you weren't even supposed to be here.”

“Oh, c'mon, Aberforth! After all we've been through, you're going to play guardian of morals?” Ginny threw her head back, snorting in disbelief.

“All I mean is that if someone from the Ministry shows up...”

Ginny lifted her head and shot Aberforth a harsh, snide look. “Oh, for Merlin's sake! The whole country is being rebuilt, people are still being buried, dark wizards are still being prosecuted... Do you really believe the Ministry's main concern is that two almost-of-age girls may be having Firewhisky on Hogsmeade without a permit?”

The old man grunted and turned to leave, muttering something about “that bloody Albus' mess” and not wanting to lose his business. Even so, a few seconds later, two glasses filled to the rim with cheap Firewhisky came flying on their direction and landed on the table.

“He's always like this, but he never denies us service”, Ginny told Luna after Aberforth had disappeared behind the counter. The two girls picked up their glasses and, on Ginny's command, lifted them a little. “Cheers!”

Ginny took a long gulp of her drink, sighing in delight after she put it back down. Luna, on the other hand, stared at her glass for a while, and sniffed it before finally taking a small sip. As the drink ran down her throat, she started coughing uncontrollably, her brows furrowed and her cheeks all red. She looked so incredibly funny and adorable that Ginny couldn't help but chuckle.

“You've never had Firewhisky before?”, she asked.

Luna shook her head and tried to speak, only to start coughing again, to her friend's great amusement.

“It's not particularly good. And it burns, the first time you drink it. But after a while, you get used to it, and then... then it makes you feel good. Relaxed, light-headed. You'll see”, Ginny explained, smiling gently at the blonde girl.

An intimate silence fell upon them as Luna tried to regain her breath. They remained like that for a long couple of minutes, just breathing and giggling and staring at one another. When Luna managed to drink some of the Firewhisky without choking, Ginny decided it was time to start speaking again.

“So... want to talk about what happened today?”

Luna's smile melted. She cast her eyes to the table, and then to the greasy window and the empty street outside. For a moment, it seemed that she would spend the rest of her life in silence. When her mouth finally opened, it was only after a few seconds that words actually came out of it.

“Draco Malfoy was at the library, today. Helping, I think. I think he's going to spend some time there with us, now”, she said, taking a long pause after each sentence.

“Does it bother you? Having him there.”

Luna turned her face away from the window and back to Ginny. Her bright, big eyes had something sad about them. “No. Not exactly. I don't mind his presence very much, and I think it's nice to have more people helping out. But... he reminds me of things. He makes me think of things I don't want to. Do you understand?”

“Yeah... Yeah, I think I do. I think we all do.” Ginny stared at her glass while Luna took a series of small sips of her drink. She didn't want to go too fast; didn't want to make her friend feel pressured for drinking too slow, nor did she want to get completely wasted and unable to give their conversation the attention it needed.

“He used to bring me food, you know? After the Death Eaters took me”, said Luna, putting her glass down. It was almost empty and Ginny hadn't even noticed. Time to pick up the pace... “I don't know if they told him to, or if he did it all behind their backs. I always wondered why they didn't send a house-elf.”

“Maybe they didn't have one anymore. The Malfoys lost a lot of money during the war, you know?”

“Yes... I know. Still, he was always there, everyday. They locked me up in this room, for a while. This tiny little room, all by myself, and he was the one who brought me food everyday. And now, seeing him there...” Luna took a deep breath. “I... I always knew the Nargles were not the ones taking my shoes. But it comforted me to think they did. I felt better. And now... Now, they don't take my things anymore. And I can't even believe the Nargles were real once.”

A single tear dropped from Luna's right eye and made its way across her cheek. She did not look embarrassed for crying in public, but she didn't seem to expect that anyone would understand it, either. It was with a little bit of shock that she widened her eyes and smiled when Ginny stretched one arm over the table to hold her hand.

Seeing Luna cry was one of the most terrible things that ever happened to Ginny. It was almost unnatural – Luna, who was such a beacon of hope to all of them, the light they turned to when everything seemed dark. But then again, wasn't that what all the other students thought of Neville and her when they were being tormented by the Carrows? Wouldn't it be terrible and unnatural for her to cry as well? So she just gazed at Luna with her kindest look, and waited. But Luna just stared at their two joined hands, her sad smile regaining a little bit of happiness, without saying a single word. So, for the second time that night, Ginny decided to break the silence.

“Does it bother you that the other students – or the Nargles – aren't taking your things anymore?”

As if she had been awoken from a very pleasant dream, Luna slowly lifted her head. “Not really. I think what bothers me is how everything changed, and why.”

“Because of the war, you mean?”

“Because they think I'm something fragile, that will fall apart if they dare to touch me. It's terrible, don't you think? Being seen as someone damaged, or broken? Like Draco Malfoy saw me when he went to my cell.”

Ginny let go of her friend's hand and got up from her chair. She took a couple of steps around the table and threw her arms around Luna's body, pressing her red hair against the dirty blonde curls.

“I don't think you're damaged and broken”, said Ginny, wanting to absorb all of the pain in Luna's heart. “And I don't think anyone else does, either. I think they respect you for everything you did. That's all.”

“You really think so?” Ginny felt the dampness of another tear hitting her shoulder. Then another one, and another one...

“Yeah... I do think so.” She straightened herself and took hold of a strand of Luna's hair, tucking it behind her left ear. “And do you know what else I think? I think we need another drink.”

Ginny picked up the two empty glasses and walked up to the counter. Grunting and complaining like he always did, Aberforth poured more Firewhisky into them. When she got back to the table, Luna wasn't crying anymore, but smiling kindly at her.

“I don't think you're damaged and broken, either.”

“What? Why do you say that?” Ginny frowned in confusion. “Does anyone think I'm damaged and broken?”

“ _You_ do”, Luna said, making Ginny feel even more lost. “That's why you asked _me_ to practice Quidditch with you, isn't it? Because you wanted to talk, and you feel like you can't do it with anyone else?”

Ginny gaped at Luna, taken aback by her words – not because they were wrong, but because they were oh, so right. She thought of denying it, of saying that she only wanted to spend time with a friend, but there was no use. If she ever felt proud for surprising Luna with her choice of venue for the night, that was because Luna was one of the most perceptive people she'd ever met. Trelawney be damned, Luna should be the one teaching Divination at Hogwarts! And she'd probably be able to know even what Snape was thinking without ever using Legilimency. Even if Ginny bothered to lie, Luna would certainly know the truth, one way or another.

“I'm going out with the Chosen One, you know? Everyone always talks about the things Harry did, and sometimes I feel so... left behind”, Ginny admitted, holding her right arm with her left hand like a cornered child. “It's not that I want to be at the centre of attentions. Not at all! I'm the only girl among seven siblings, and the youngest of them all! I've had enough attention for a lifetime! It's just that... I was there too, you know? In the middle of the war. I was at Hogwarts, being tortured like everyone else, and I could never show how much I was suffering, going through all that and not knowing if my brother was alive, if my boyfriend was alive, if my friends were alive... I felt so alone.” Without noticing, she'd started to press her fingernails into her skin. Her body was tense, and her voice was beginning to rise. She pulled herself back together before continuing. “And then the war ended, and I still couldn't show how I felt. With Fred dead, and the school destroyed, and Harry finally being able to live a normal life without fearing that he might die at any time... I had to be strong. Even when I couldn't.” There was more she was not saying.

There was the fact that Neville had killed Nagini with the sword of Gryffindor, and now everyone recognized his bravery, but no one ever said a word about how much courage she had, being there for all of them when she should be crying in a corner. There was the fact that she'd felt like a surrogate for Harry when he was not around, like someone whose purpose was solely to fill in the place of another. But those were cruel things, things she was not willing to admit, not even to her best friend, not even during her second shot of Firewhisky.

“I'm here for you. You know that, right?”, Luna said in her calm, beautiful voice.

What was she supposed to say? That she knew? That it didn't matter, because she couldn't force her traumas upon Luna after everything she'd just said? Was she supposed to thank her? Ginny did not know. So she just smiled, and changed the topic slightly. “There's also another thing I need to talk about. It's something I've been thinking about, but... everyone would think I'm crazy if I told them.”

“Oh, so that's why you're telling _me_?”, Luna joked.

“Yeah. Maybe.” Ginny giggled shyly. “I've been thinking about breaking up with Harry.”

Luna's chin dropped and her eyes froze upon her friend's face. Once again, Ginny had managed to catch the most perceptive of the Ravenclaws entirely off guard.

“Why?”, Luna asked after a few seconds of silence.

“I just... It's what you said earlier, about how things have changed. Two years ago, we were completely different people. We were equals, so to speak, and now... Now he's the one that defeated Voldemort, and everyone else just sees me as the 'lucky girl', chosen by the Chosen One. Not that it wasn't like this before, but it's different, somehow. Maybe because now he knows about it, too. He can remember killing him, I mean.”

“Well... Have you spoken to Harry about that?”

“I did, yeah.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said it doesn't matter what other people think, that there's nothing that special about him, and that the important thing is that we love each other.” Ginny paused, uncertain if she should go on. She had spent so much time hiding her feelings that it felt strange to let some of them out. “But it's not just that. We've spent a whole year away from each other. He's been through things I will never be able to understand. _I've_ been through things _he_ will never be able to understand. I had to cope everyday with the thought that he could be dead. _Dead!_ Do you know what that does to you?” She noticed that she was again pressing her nails into her flesh. “What do you think about all that?”, she asked, too nervous to go on.

“I... I don't... I don't know”, Luna stammered, still glaring at her with the same shocked expression she put on when Ginny brought up the potential break-up. “I... I guess, maybe, you should do it. I mean, not because of the way you think other people see you, but... if you really think you don't love him like this anymore.”

Ginny couldn't help but feel somewhat disappointed. Luna, sweet, sensitive and kind Luna, who always had something insightful to say, couldn't stop blinking at her in what looked like utter disbelief. While she considered her best friend's advice, a rhythmic knock came from the window. When she turned to look, George was standing there, smiling and waving at them. With a blink of an eye, he appeared beside their table, a third chair in his hands.

“Hi, Ginny! Hey, Luna! So, what are you two doing out of school?”

“What are you doing here, George?” Ginny didn't mean to sound irritated, just curious about why her brother was taking such a detour from his way home from the shop. However, judging by his mockingly offended face, she had seemed more annoyed than she actually was by his presence.

“Nothing much, just paying old Aberforth a little visit after a hard day at work”, he said, tapping his little sister on the back and sitting down on the newly arrived chair. “So, what are we having here? Ooooohhhhh, Firewhisky! I should tell mom! Oi, Aberforth!”

“'Night, Weasley. A bottle of Firewhisky, as usual?”

“No, no, no. Tonight I'm just keeping my little sister and her friend some company. Just a glass will do.”

 

* * *

After George showed up, the night took a strange and sad turn. He ended up ordering his usual bottle of Firewhisky after all, and as he got drunker and drunker, the more depressing he became to watch. He didn't do anything extreme, like crying or breaking glasses against the walls, but every now and then he would start cracking up a joke only to expect an answer that would never come. Fred's ghost lingered above them, and Ginny wondered if her brother was always like that when he was away from family. In the end, Aberforth had to help them drag George to the Knight Bus, and she and Luna came back to the castle in almost absolute silence.

The strange, sad night turned into a strange, sad weekend. For the next couple of days, Ginny barely left the Gryffindor common room, and refused to take part in conversations or any other group activities. Whenever Harry tried to talk to her about what was going on, she merely said she was having a tough time and needed to clear up her head.

At first, her brother had been the one occupying her thoughts. She knew Fred's death had been a huge blow to George; everyone knew. Even within the family, it was agreed that George was the one suffering the most from his passing. Not even her mother dared question it. However, seeing him like that, unable to function properly, constantly waiting for the beloved twin that would never show up... She wasn't prepared for that. Not at all. And she couldn't get it out of her head.

But as time went by, the pressing issue of her relationship with Harry started to take George's place as her main concern. After all, this was always what it came to, in the end. Whenever she started thinking about some drastic change brought by the war, or her feelings about something else, she always traced her way back to how Harry had been affecting her, lately. She needed to get that out of the way, if she ever wanted to sort herself out. So it was for her sake, for George's sake, and even for Harry's sake that she did what had to be done.

By the end of that weekend, Ginny broke up with Harry. It was painful, but after it was all over, Ginny was taken by a deep sense of relief –  though not without it's share of guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Out of the four characters I chose to be my protagonists, Ginny was the hardest to write, since I never had that much insight on her. I did my best, and I hope you liked it. =)
> 
> There was this weird "temporal anomally" between the last chapter and this one, so I went back and changed the time Hermione got to the library, so that it would be a little bit later when Ginny and Luna got to Hogsmeade.
> 
> From the next chapter on, I'm thinking about ditching this "one POV per chapter" thing I'm doing. I'm afraid the story will progress too slowly if I keep on doing this. Maybe alternating between POVs on one chapter would be best? Tell me what you think!


	5. Topics of conversation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, first things first: thanks so much to everyone that left comments and kudos! It's really great to get this feedback from you! =)  
> Also, sorry it took me so long to update. A series of things happened that left me with virtually not time to write. You know, life getting in the way and all... Besides that, I was having some issues connecting the previous chapters to things I have planned for the story in the future. This chapter is sort of a bridge between those things - not the most exciting ever, but I hope you like it anyway.
> 
> Before you begin, I feel like I should warn you there will be some very little descriptions of torture. Magic torture, nothing real, and it won't take more than a couple of lines, but read it cautiously if you have issues with that.

Yellow, black, blue, bronze, gold and red. A group of ten children, all of them in their first year of Hogwarts, stood in front of her, their eyes widened in anticipation and something that looked a lot like fear. Beside her, Dean Thomas had an eerie smile on his face. Trying to calm them down, perhaps? Or, maybe, he was just nervous. She was nervous, as well. They were probably all nervous – her, Dean and all the other eight of them. They were nothing but children themselves, after all, though the war – and, in some cases, the law – had dictated otherwise.

Looking for something to keep herself occupied, Hermione straightened her robes over and over again. She wasn't quite sure about what she was doing there. She had never been part of a support group before, though Professor Pennyworth had assured her this wasn't exactly the case.

It had all been his idea, inviting sixth and seventh years muggle-borns to talk with younger students that had been imprisoned or on the run during the war. His goal, he explained when he asked Hermione and Dean to join the group, was to make the children realize that, though their first contact with the wizarding world had been through prejudice and hate, they still had a place there. “The three of us,” he said, “we got our first peek of the wonders of this world before we had to face its horrors. We already felt like we belonged, like we had the _right_ to this space we fought so hardly for. But they... they're afraid of _being_ here, even. They feel alone, isolated. What I want is to make them feel like they have a place in this world – in _our_ world.”

And so, along with other Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, Hermione and Dean were invited to join Professor Pennyworth's unorthodox welcome committee, whose goal was to make those small witches and wizards traumatized by the war feel like they had a home at Hogwarts. Standing there, waiting for their first meeting to begin, Hermione wasn't sure she would be of much help. Lately, she couldn't even bring _herself_ to believe she had a home at Hogwarts.

Without her noticing, her lips contorted into a smile much like Dean's.

The door clicked open and Professor Pennyworth stepped into the classroom. They all turned to look at the man that made his way to the middle of the room, cleared of desks by a simple shrinking spell. His brown eyes, almost the same colour as his skin, examined the students that surrounded him. His face, though still young, was marked by wrinkles and scars. His long, dark hair was contained in a ponytail, a few streaks of grey starting to make their way across the deep black. He was a handsome man, Hermione thought. Though perhaps it was time he got rid of the ponytail.

“Good morning”, he said, with a smile way more sincere than those of Hermione and Dean, and waited for the students' shy response. “I'm so glad you could all be here, today. Especially you.” He turned to the older ones. “Thank you so much for your help!”

He had a kind and cheerful expression, but she could see a tinge of sorrow hidden in his eyes. But it was not the heavy, tired pain she saw in most of her classmates and professors: it had something victorious about it, like he knew something that no one else did, like he had conquered death itself. It was impressive that he managed to act that way after all the ordeals the Death Eaters and the Dementors had put him through. She felt a pang in her heart and told herself it was sympathy for the teacher and horror at the idea of facing even half the things they did to him.

Even though she would never admit it, what Hermione truly felt was guilt. Looking at all his strength, she felt ashamed for all the sadness that had engulfed her ever since the day she ran into Draco Malfoy at the library. All her memories of her parents, all the scars that marked her body, they all seemed to pale in comparison to his suffering. For a split second, she felt another pang in her heart – this time, it was anger. Towards the professor or herself, she could not tell.

As she dwelt in her feelings, Professor Pennyworth began dividing the students into pairs. He put the younger ones in line and called out to the sixth and seventh years in alphabetical order, according to their last names. The third name he called was Hermione's. She walked up to him and stood in front of a small, chubby, pale girl. She wore a Hufflepuff uniform, the yellow of the scarf matching the colour of her messy hair, partially braided on the back.

“Miss Hermione Granger,” said the professor, “this is Miss Bonnie Bellamy. You will rely on each other for the whole duration of this... _course_... of ours. Take good care of her, Miss Granger. She's a very special one.” He smiled and patted the little girl on the head before showing them to the other side of the classroom, where the already formed pairs awaited further instructions.

As the little Hufflepuff girl stared at her feet, Hermione opened and closed her mouth multiple times, thinking of possible conversation topics to make the girl – or herself – more comfortable. Unable to find anything to say, she proceeded to mimic Bonnie's actions and stared at her own shoes.

Lucky for Hermione, it didn't take long until Professor Pennyworth was done sorting the students.

“Accio ten desks!”, he shouted, and ten of the tiny two-seat desks that were piled up in a corner came flying to the middle of the room. With two other spells, he made them grow back to their normal sizes and arranged them in a circle. “There you go! Now, if you could just take your seats...”

* * *

David Pennyworth had seen more than his fair share of horrors in his life. Caught in the Irish border trying to smuggle a boy and his muggle-born parents to the other side, he had his wand taken away from him and was subsequently sent to Azkaban. There, he had served as a test subject to many newly developed dark curses and some older ones that had fallen into oblivion in more civilized times. Once, they made him suffocate for an entire day while keeping him alive with magic. Every now and then, they force-fed him a potion that made his blood boil. On a particularly cruel session, they made him have hallucinations with the child he had tried to sneak into Ireland. In David's head, the boy was torn to shreds by Fenrir Greyback, over and over again. As the house-elves dragged him back to his cell, he heard the two Death Eaters who had performed the experiment refer to it as the “Human Pensieve”.

In the small space meant for only one person, David crowded with seven other prisoners, including a terrified little girl that he recognized from the news: her name was Bonnie, and she had been reported missing by two muggles called Jacob and Sarah Bellamy. Like others her age, she had been snatched away for questioning and imprisonment without even knowing there was such a thing as real witches and wizards.

David had always had a way with children. Even as a young boy, he'd always worry about the smaller ones, and was a parent favourite when it came to babysitting. Therefore, it was with a certain ease that he managed to strike up a conversation with the quivering girl that was too scared to even touch her small ration of food. In a couple of minutes, he'd finally gotten her to swallow a few spoons of soup and to believe he wouldn't let any more harm come to her.

It had been for Bonnie that he decided to put on his armour and face everything the Death Eaters could do to him with his head held high – for her and for all the other children he had seen on the hallways of Azkaban and the safe houses from his organization. If he could resist just a little longer, they wouldn't need to go after other prisoners to test their evil methods. If he could just put his mind to it, he could figure out a way to get those kids to safety. Every beating he endured, ever curse he survived meant the Bonnies of the world would live to see another day.

As he circled the room making sure his Older Sibling Project - as he liked to call it in the secret of his mind - was working, he considered his efforts and decided they had paid off. Though he never did find a way to make those children escape their reality, he had managed to keep himself alive to help them deal with the consequences. He was no psychologist, and, in its isolation, wizarding society had never been very keen on muggle sciences like psychology. Therefore, he had no intention to force the children to talk about their traumatic experiences, nor to give tests and exercises he knew nothing about. All he wanted was to facilitate communication between his younger students and others that knew the problems they faced and were able to help them sort themselves out – maybe even gaining something in the process.

And things seemed to be going pretty well. For this meeting, all he had asked of them was to talk about their lives and interests, to get to know each other. He went from desk to desk hearing bits of the conversations, interfering whenever he felt the need to, and everyone seemed to be getting along just fine. Except...

Bonnie Bellamy scratched the surface of the wooden desk, certainly not listening to the many words that came out of the mouth of Miss Hermione Granger. As he approached the two of them, he could hear the Gryffindor girl going on and on about magic, and her favourite subjects at Hogwarts, and classes Bonnie should definitely go for when she was older.

David placed his hands on the desk and looked at Hermione. She just kept on talking, perhaps even faster than before, like she was trying to make sure he could see how on control of the situation she was – much like she behaved in class whenever she answered a question. When she finally stopped for air, he managed to squeeze into the conversation. “Miss Bellamy, why don't you tell Miss Granger about that science project of yours? You know, the one that even got you an award? As I'm sure you've noticed, Miss Granger is one of the school's most dedicated students. I bet she'd love to hear about it. Wouldn't you, Miss Granger?”.

Hermione's face turned bright when he turned to look at her again. Her lips curled into a smile and she sounded sincerely happy and interested – and even slightly relieved – when she said “yes”.

Though she was still scratching the surface of the desk and avoiding eye contact with her partner, Bonnie began to narrate the story of her project about the complexities of an ant colony. She kept it simple, just the basic facts, but Hermione was quick to ask her a number of questions about the details of her study – some of them a little too out of reach for an 11-year-old, but Bonnie did her best to answer everything as precisely as possible, just as he knew she would. In more than one of their conversations, when he was too hurt and Bonnie too scared to sleep, she'd spent countless minutes talking about her ants and how excited her parents were when her project was chosen as the best in the science fair.

Feeling that his work there was done, David slowly drifted away from the two girls. There. Now they're conversation would go just fine.

* * *

It was _terrible_!

Hermione left the classroom feeling like she was on her first year all over again, driving everyone away with her lack of tact and her incessant academic babble. As soon as Professor Pennyworth announced the end of their little reunion, Bonnie ran away from her as fast as she could. In the hallway, Hermione saw her pulling a young Slytherin girl by the sleeves of her robes and throwing her head back like someone sleeping on a chair. Boring was probably the kindest thing she would say about Hermione that day. After all, there was also the fact that she had spent long minutes going on and on about all the wonders of being a witch to a child that had just been victimized by the same magic that seemed so wondrous in her eyes. _Oh, dear Merlin..._

Admittedly, things got a little bit better after Professor Pennyworth's interference, but, still, it didn't take Hermione very long to run out of questions about muggle zoology, a subject she hadn't really studied in seven years. Even _her_ intellect had its limits! After Bonnie had finished clearing all of her doubts – the real ones and the fake –, their bonding session went downhill once more, since Hermione had no idea what to say to keep the girl interested.

Exhausted, she waved goodbye at Dean, still caught up in a heated discussion about football with his Gryffindor girl, and slammed her back against the wall. She let out a sigh and briefly closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Ron was standing right beside her, resting his elbow on the castle's bricks, his hand pressed against his left temple.

“You're going to become a very wrinkly old lady if you keep frowning like that, you know?”. He had a kind smile on his lips as he pointed at the little creases on her forehead.

“Oh, shut up!”, she said, giggling and playfully pushing her boyfriend's hand away from her face.

Seizing the opportunity, Ron took hold of Hermione's fingers and pulled her towards him, away from the wall. Allowing him to lead her, she threw her free arm around his neck and gave him a small peck on the lips. As he slid his right hand down her back, trying to turn the kiss into something more intimate, she pushed away, blushing.

“Stop it!”

“Why? What's the matter?”, he asked, catching a streak of curly hair in his fingers and playing with it.

“We're in the middle of the hallway. What if a professor sees us? Don't think they can't give us detention just because we're of age, now!”

“Yeah, so? Let them do it. Maybe they'll send us to the Forbidden Forest. I have some ideas for things we could do there...”

“Ronald Weasley!”. She slapped him in the head, chuckling and looking around to see if anyone had heard him.

He giggled and trailed after her when she started walking, shaking her head in disbelief.

“How did your meeting go?”, he asked, his hands stuffed into his pockets, and the remnants of his laughter still visible on his lips.

Hermione sighed. “Not very well. Professor Pennyworth paired us up with some younger students, and I think mine hates me.”

She explained the teacher's idea to him and told him about Bonnie and their sad excuse for a conversation. She spoke of how she couldn't get the girl interested in anything she said, of how she didn't know what subjects to approach besides classes and schoolwork, of how she felt all the progress she had made on the field of human interaction going down the drain and how she saw herself devolving into that annoying know-it-all that opened Harry and Ron's compartment door on their first year of Hogwarts.

She left out the part about how she couldn't stop talking about magic, and how off-putting it should've been to the Hufflepuff girl. She judged herself for being so insensitive, and feared that Ron would judge her as well – or, even worse, she feared that, being a pureblood, he would be unable to understand her past wonder and Bonnie's current fear of the wizarding world.

But the biggest fear of all was that bringing up anything related to the war, and the Death Eaters, and being a “mudblood” would taint their happiness. She was in Hogwarts, with Ron Weasley, just like she should've always been, and all that horror had no place between them. They loved each other, and she had dreamed of it for so long, of how beautiful and perfect it would be... No. The memories of the war should stay somewhere else, far away from their love. Their love preceded Voldemort's ascent, and it would surpass it like it had never happened – she would make sure of it.

Unaware of the workings of his girlfriend's brain, Ron listened in silence to what she had to say, nodding from time to time.

“Well... maybe she'll grow to like you. You don't make very good first impressions, you know? Maybe things will change”, he offered when she was done.

Hermione gaped at him, looking for words that could sum up her indignation. “Well, thanks a lot, Ron!”, she finally said, with a snort, and sped up the hallway.

“Oh, c'mon, you know what I mean!" He ran to catch up with her. "We love you, but you remember how Harry and I hated you on our first year. But then we got to actually _know_ you, to get past the whole bookworm thing...”. At the word “bookworm”, Hermione's face started to turn red, and Ron found it was better to change the subject. “Look, forget what I said! What are you doing now? Wanna go for a walk, perhaps?”

He lift one of his eyebrows and put on his best goofy smile, and Hermione felt the anger on her face dissolve into a warm, light expression. “Can't. Gotta go to the library. Luna told me some boxes arrived yesterday, so Madam Pince will need me to help sort them out.”

Ron let out an annoyed puff. “Blimey, Hermione! You only have two free afternoons the whole week, and you spend them all at the library! And now there's this group...”

“In all fairness, Ron, you should be in Quidditch practice”, she cut him off.

“Yeah, well... _that_...” Ron rolled his eyes and looked at the floor. “I dropped by. They're choosing a new chaser for Katie's spot, today, you know? I wanted to be there. But being in the same place as Harry and Ginny... It's suffocating! I mean, Harry just wanders around the pitch, not paying attention to any of the candidates and gazing at Ginny, and Ginny tries to act like nothing's happened... I really couldn't stay there.”

Hermione nodded understandingly. “Things have been really strange around them, this past week. Has Harry said anything to you? Or Ginny?”

“No. Harry mostly just sulks. And I don't think Ginny wants to talk to me about it, him being my best friend and all. Has she mentioned anything to you?”

“No. She's been spending a lot of time with Luna, though. She says Ginny just needs to clear her head a little. Maybe it's true.” Hermione shrugged, and Ron shook his head. They walked in silence for a while, each of them thinking about their friends' relationship and fearing what its ending meant to their small group. Hermione, in particular, wondered how much of the events of the past year had affected Ginny's feelings for Harry, and assured herself that the same would never happen to her and Ron.

She looked at him, walking side by side with her, momentarily lost in his own thoughts. Ron had a funny expression when he was thinking, like something inside his brain had broken. He was smart – smarter than he gave himself credit for –, clever in ways that were so very different than hers, but one would never guess from looking at him while he thought. He looked so befuddled she had to repress a chuckle. And then she had an idea:

“Why don't you come to the library with me?”

He stopped and gaped at her like she had completely lost her mind. “ _What_?”

“C'mon, it will be fun!”

He snorted. “No offence, Mione, but spending my afternoon organizing books and listening to Madam Pince complain that we're making them greasy with our eyes or something is far from _my_ definition of fun.”

“Oh, please! Madam Pince is not that bad!” She rolled her eyes at Ron's shocked expression and reconsidered. “Well, okay, maybe she is a _little_ paranoid about the books, but there's so much to do at the library she rarely spends too much time around us. Besides, you can do something simple, like putting the books up on the shelves. There's no getting it wrong!”

“I don't know...”

“And Luna won't be there, today. We can use an extra hand.” As Ron still didn't look convinced, she put on the most adorable puppy eyes she could come up with and added: “Please? You can keep me company...”

Ron scratched his head and let out a puff. From the corners of his lips, she saw a smile starting to form. The puppy eyes never failed her; not once.


	6. In the wrong place

“What the hell is _he_ doing here?”, he heard the Weasel boy say as he crossed the library to clear up some things with Madam Pince, who was just now starting to assess the damage at the Restricted Section. _The same could be asked of you_ , he thought. _It's a wonder you even managed to learn how to read!_ He could picture himself saying the words to the boy's face and watching it turn as red as his shabby hair. But he kept it to himself. He already had a hard time as it was, without picking fights with thuggish Gryffindors – especially since said thuggish Gryffindor would probably use against him all the horrible truths and would-be-truths he was hiding from at that precise moment.

Draco, the Death Eater. Draco, who tried to kill Albus Dumbledore. Draco, who let Vincent Crabbe die in the Room of Hidden Things. Draco, who, like his auntie Bella, probably had enjoyed torturing the poor souls that had been made prisoners in his home. Draco, the pathetic evil servant that crawled into his parents' arms while good people were dying alone on the floor. He felt like Snape had left him all his Legilimency: whenever he looked at someone, he could practically see those words floating above their heads. It was unbearable!

In the library, however, he didn't have to deal with their judgement – nor with his own.

It was quiet in the library. There was no one gossiping and whispering behind his back, no one to make assumptions about his part in the war, no screams of people trapped in the past under the green light of an Avada Kedavra or the red flames of Fiendfyre, as he had discovered that day, when he fell asleep in the Study Hall. Granger was almost always there, of course, and so was the Lovegood girl. But, as he also discovered that day, their presence did not make him feel as bad as the others in the castle. There were no assumptions hovering above their heads, no tales of cowardice and cruelty far beyond his spoiled child reach. They had been there: they knew what he had and what he hadn't done. Maybe they had even seen the fear and the reluctance in his eyes when he was commanded to watch a torture session or an execution, though that was highly unlikely. One doesn't pay much attention to their tormentors feelings when they're being starved and humiliated, Draco had come to learn.

Madam Pince was the only person there in the position to speculate. However, due to her particular type of misanthropy, she hardly spent time around them and would mostly keep it to herself as long as no one did anything to harm the books. She had been a bit reluctant to accept a former Death Eater as a volunteer, but she eventually came around, probably because there weren't many people interested in helping her out in the first place.

Draco had finally found peace somewhere in the castle. Granted, people still didn't speak to him, but they also didn't speak much  _about_ him. And he actually didn't mind being alone – on the contrary, he quite liked it. It was an improvement of sorts. But all that was about to go down the drain if Granger had started to drag her Gryffindor friends to spend their free afternoons at the library. And she had chosen the worst of them to be the first!

As he marched back to his work station, he saw Weasley's eyes following him from behind a shelf. Again, he pretended not to notice, though he was sure his disdain was clearly visible to someone paying close attention.

Far away from the Gryffindor's view, he climbed the tall wooden chair that stood behind Madam Pince's tall wooden counter, where the book that had elicited his doubt – a silly one, really, about cataloguing books with more than three authors – laid open. Slightly above it, the floating quill and piece of parchment awaited patiently for his instructions. He took a deep breath and began reciting the book's information, taking long pauses between the words. The quill obviously had no need for it, but he was in no rush to finish his job.

With the same apathy, he put the book with the others from the same pile and picked up the next ones, a bunch of volumes of what seemed to be a collection of manuals on care of magical creatures written in Spanish. As he reached to the other side of the counter for the new pair of Babel glasses Professor Flitwick had put together, Draco asked himself why on Earth did the Carrows even bothered with such a topic.

He was already on the tenth book when he noticed that one thing was not like the others. The Calderón Beginners Guide to Potions did not look like something belonging to a pile of manuals regarding animals. Draco gazed at the book. He thought about putting it aside and continuing what he was doing, but the book immediately beneath the guide was also about potions. And so was the book beneath that one. He considered taking the books back and placing them in the correct pile. Granger and Lovegood had obviously made some mistake. But then it hit him that maybe – just maybe – he had misunderstood the topic of the pile. Now that he thought about it, there had been no floating parchment square indicating the subject pertaining those books. Maybe  _he_ had made a mistake. He would have to ask Granger about it.

Draco closed his eyes and took a deep breath before making his way to where Granger was, separating the recently arrived books into more piles for him to catalogue. He knew he had to control himself. He had no intention of being rude, not at all. He knew very well he had no right to treat her badly after... well... everything. However, being rude came naturally to him, so he knew he had to police himself. Especially since the Weasel would probably jump to his girlfriend's side and punch him if he ever was even the slightest impolite. He didn't feel like getting hit in the face that day.

Granger stood behind small towers of books, her hair held up in a bun, kept in place by her own wand. One frizzy streak fell over her right eye, unaffected by the pair of Babel glasses she wore like a headband. Her robe was thrown over the table, beside a large box filled with books up to the rim, and her shirt's sleeves were rolled up to her elbow. She didn't look up, not even when he got close enough to hear her turn the pages of the book she was examining and see the wrinkles between her eyebrows. She was probably hoping he would go away soon if she just ignored him.

She looked crazy, he thought. A little like Professor Trelawney on her worst days. A lot like one of those old witches that huddled with thousands of cats inside old, crumbling houses. Didn't Granger use to have a cat? Perhaps that had been the first sign of her madness.

The thought amused him, and he gave a tiny smirk before clearing his throat to call her attention.

She jerked her head up, her eyes widened in alarm. She really hadn't noticed his presence, then.

“There were some potions books in the middle of a pile on care of magical creatures”, he said, tapping the knuckles of his fingers on the hard cover of the book he held in his left hand. “Is there a new filing order no one told me about or did  _you_ make some mistake?”

_Fuck_ . He had not meant to put so much emphasis on the word. Now he was sure to fall prey to her pet troll. However, the accusation seemed to make her relax, somewhat: her eyes were no longer the size of bludgers, but small, dark orbs filled with impatience. “Let me see it, Malfoy”, she stretched out her arm and grabbed the book when he offered it to her. Frowning once more, she lowered the glasses that were _not_ holding back her hair and stared intently at the book's cover. “Where did you get this?”, she asked, flipping through the pages.

“It was on one of the piles near the Study Hall.”

“Well, what category was it sorted under?”

“I don't know! That's why I'm asking you!”, he spoke, his patience already wearing off. Wasn't she supposed to be the brightest witch of her age or some shit like that?

She lift the glasses back to her hair and rolled her eyes.  _Oh, am I supposed to be the idiot?_ , he thought.  _You're asking me the exact same question I'm asking you, but I'm the idiot?_ “What did the parchment above it say?”, she said, forcefully enunciating each one of the words.

Draco shrugged. “There was no parchment above it. That's the problem. I assumed they were all about animals and such, because of the top book, but...” He stopped talking when he noticed Granger was widening her eyes once more and sucking all the air out of the room. “What?”

“Malfoy, were you cataloguing  _those_ books? The ones that were unmarked?”, she nearly screamed. She probably would have if they weren't in a library. 

“Yes, that's exactly what I said”, he responded in a confused but condescending tone.

“Oh, God...” The Muggle expression sounded foreign to his ears, even though he'd heard it many times before and knew exactly what it meant. From students that had forgotten their papers to prisoners in their cells, all Muggleborns called out for this deity whenever they found something was wrong.

“ _What_ ?”, he asked one more time.

“Well... the books that were unmarked... they were foreign copies of things we already have in English, or very old, outdated books... we were going to give them away...” She did not stammer, nor did the words got caught in her throat, but there was something in the long pauses she left between the sentences that showed him she was nervous, or even afraid.

And she bloody well should be!

“Are you  _joking_ ?”, he all but shouted. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Weasley appearing from behind a bookshelf and walking towards them. “I mean, really? You're telling me I just spent half an hour cataloguing all those stupid books and it turns out they're just garbage?  _Really?_ ”

She looked offended. “They are not garbage, Malfoy! They...”

“ _I don't care what they are!_ Merlin, I could have done something actually useful with all those minutes you made me lose!” He knew he was probably overreacting. There wasn't much he could have done in half an hour, at least nothing important. Still, all of the work he'd been doing had been for naught, and that was  _certainly_ not his fault.

“Look, I'm sorry...”, she said, a little less nervous than before, like his rage had given her strength.

“Yeah, well, you better be! Fuck, couldn't you have put those bloody books somewhere else? I know Pince is mental, and I'm not even bringing up Lovegood, but you were supposed to have some fucking brains, right?” He saw her eyes fill with rage and felt the arrogant boy he had been come back to life. He could almost sense young Crabbe and young Goyle standing behind him. “Fucking Hermione Granger, Gryffindor's most nosy, annoying know-it-all! Well, turns out your just as dumb as the rest of your housemates, aren't you?”

It all happened in a split second: a pale hand took hold of his throat, making him lose his breath, and his head and back were slammed against a cold brick wall.

“You better watch it, mate”, Weasley said through his teeth and dropped him on the floor.

“I'm not your mate!”, Draco spat out as soon as he realised what had happened. He picked himself up and straightened his robes. “And  _you_ better watch it, Weasley, or else...”

“Or else what? Huh? You gonna call your Death Eater daddy to Crucio me? Or are you gonna do it yourself? Heard he wasn't a very good Death Eater, after all. Maybe you're a better one.” Weasley moved back and forth in front of him, his head shaking in a threatening motion, and Draco could feel the blood rushing to his head. Granger must've noticed it too: she placed a hand on her boyfriend's arm and muttered his name, but he paid her no mind. “You should all be in Azkaban, you lot. Honestly,  _mate_ , after everything, how do you even have the courage to show your bloody face around here? And to talk to her like  _that_ ? Isn't it a bad enough torture that she has to see you every fucking day? Not to mention poor Luna! Merlin knows what you did to her when she was all alone in that house of yours...”

Draco had been at a loss for words up until that very second. Everything Weasley had said before was true, he knew it well, and he could not fight it. But not  _that_ .  _That_ he could dispute. “I have never pointed my wand at Luna Lovegood, and I _certainly_ never laid a finger on her”, he spat out. “You can ask her yourself. I helped her! I went behind their backs, I gave her food...”

“Oh, and do you want a medal for all your effort? For feeding the girl you were torturing? Merlin , you are even more pathetic than I thought...”

“I did not torture Luna Lovegood!” Without him noticing, Draco had pulled out his wand – his new, barely used wand – and was pressing it against Weasley's throat, their faces so close he could almost smell the other boy's skin. “Say that to me one more time! Say it!”

“Expelliarmus!” He hadn't been looking at Granger. None of them had. She had been quiet for so long he'd even forgot she was there to begin with. The spell caught him completely by surprise, and it was with shock that he stared at his wand when it flew out of his hand and hit the floor.

Draco turned to look at her, his breath heavier and heavier every second, vitriol filling up his mouth. She had her wand pointed at his chest, her face also contorted in anger, and on the tip of his tongue he felt the weight of everything he wanted to say to her. He wouldn't call her a Mudblood or anything like that - Merlin be damned if he hadn't learned by know how wrong that was -, but there were other insults that could be used in the heat of a fight, insults that would befit her and her troll of a boyfriend in the same fashion. But then he noticed something odd about the way Granger was looking at him, something that made him clench his teeth and hold back the words that would surely get him stupefied. Behind all the rage, there were tears pooling in her eyes.

He felt his body relax as he gazed at Granger, studying her like she had become one of the books. The pained expression on her face was extremely confusing, not exactly sadness and not exactly hate. He could not find a word to define it. Still, it hurt him. It reminded him of where he was, of what he had done, of why she had sounded afraid when she had to tell him about the rejected books. It reminded him of Luna's body flinching the first time he opened the door to her cell. For the first time since he volunteered to help at the library, Draco realized there was a downside to not having room for speculations.

“Get out of here, Malfoy”, Granger said, and he knew he should obey. He was not supposed to be there. He never had been. The problem was he couldn't leave: he was entranced by the girl in front of him and paralysed by all the memories she brought back. “Leave, Malfoy! Now! Get your wand and go away”.

It took him all of his willpower to start moving again, but, eventually, Draco picked up his wand and left the library without looking back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'd like to thank everyone that left kudos and comments and to thank you in advance if you're thinking about leaving kudos and comments. <3
> 
> Once again, sorry it took me so long to update and sorry this isn't the most exciting of chapters. I was trying to make a longer chapter, with more stuff happening, so that there would be some advance on the Draco/Hermione area and it wouldn't take too long to get to another Luna/Ginny chapter, but the chapter was getting waaaaay to long, so I decided to cut it in half. This also means I will take a little longer to get to Luna and Ginny again, but, hopefully, the breaks will make the reading flow better. What do you think? =)


	7. Moonflower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, much love to all the commenters and kudos-givers! I'm always happy to see a new one! Thanks, guys! =)
> 
> Again, I feel like a should leave a content warning here, this time for drug use. They're magical made-up drugs, but still... People react differently to different things, right? So, content warning: drugs.

The other students were doing their best to fit under the door frame, elbows and eyes pressed against each other, pieces of fabric caught beneath dirty shoes – all to catch a glimpse of the fight they had been hearing for the past five minutes. At first, they had tried to ignore it and kept on talking and studying in their corners. Then, after a particularly loud scream, the Common Room went quiet, like someone had cast a silencing spell on it. When Dean and the sixth year boy that had been sleeping on Seamus bed left the room followed by a flash of blue light, everyone else left behind their sense of self-preservation and rushed to the dormitory to see what was going on.

_Fine_ , she thought.  _Gather around! Watch the show! See if I care!_

After all, it wasn't like she'd had any privacy in her life ever since she became “Hermione Granger, heartbreaker and mastermind behind the Golden Trio”, as Rita Skeeter had written in one of her many articles for the Daily Prophet about her, and Harry, and Ron. Besides, she had tried to keep it to herself, not making conversation during dinner and burying her face in a textbook as soon as they got to the Common Room, but if Ron wanted a show, than a show was what he would have.

“I am perfectly capable of defending myself, thank you very much!”, she yelled, probably for the fifth time that night.

“I was just trying to help”, countered Ron. “I mean, the way he was talking to you, he was...”

“If I had felt the need to have him thrown against a wall for it, Ronald, I could've done so myself! You are not the only person in this school to have punched Malfoy in the face, you know?” She heard a stifled giggle coming from the door and turned her back on her boyfriend and their audience.

He must have taken it as some sign of fragility, a cue to approach her, for he placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke softly: “But things are different now, Mione...”

She wished he hadn't said that. “Oh, are they, Ron?”, she shouted, violently shrugging his hand away and turning to face him once more. “Are they? 'Cause  _I_ sure hadn't noticed!” Exasperated, she ran her hands through her hair and accidentally got her wand caught in one of her curls. As she yanked it out, the students at the door all flinched, most likely afraid another flash of light would burst out of it.

“I'm sorry... That's not what I meant.”

“Why did you even have to bring this up? Huh? We were talking about  _books_ , he was being an arsehole because of a bunch of  _books_ ! He called me  _stupid_ ! That's all he did! Why did you have to bring it all up? Why did you...” The words got caught in her throat, sore from all the effort she had put into those last few sentences. Beneath her right eye, a tiny tear started to make its way across her face, and she knew that was only the first of many.

She turned to Harry, who had watched the entire fight from the same bed he had spent the past week brooding in. Already alarmed by all the yelling that had broken into his depressed haze, he jumped when she called his name. “Harry, where's the invisibility cloak?” He opened his mouth, but no sound came from it. “So?”

“Um... what do you want it for?”, he asked, but she didn't answer. All she did was stare at him and wipe away a second tear, hoping against all hope that no one else would notice her crying. “Mione, I don't think you should go walking around the castle like this. Maybe...”

“Fine!”, she said, turning her back at him and storming out of the room, her anger enough to make the other kids open a path for her before she even came close to them.

She didn't need that stupid cloak, anyway. So what if Filch caught her? What would he do? Put her in detention organizing tests for Professor Slughorn? Send her to hunt gnomes on the Quidditch field? Certainly nothing worse than what had already been done to her! As Ron had put it himself, things were very different now.

The Fat Lady called out her name once or twice when she left the Gryffindor Tower, but didn't make much effort to make her stop. Perhaps she saw the tears that were starting to drip from Hermione's chin, or perhaps she simply wasn't in the mood. It was late, after all, way past dinner hours, and everyone in the castle was getting ready for bed, even the pictures.

The farther she got from the tower, the faster the tears came out of her eyes. Unable to hold them back, she walked down the stairs as fast as she could without running, stomping on the steps, completely oblivious to the complaints of the inhabitants of the walls.

It was only when she finally stopped that she realized she wasn't inside the castle anymore. Tired, short of breath, her heart aching and pounding against her chest, she fell to her knees on the dewy grass. Too weak to hold herself up, she let her body fold over and held herself as firmly as she could. With every gasp and every whimper, she'd tighten her embrace and try to convince herself that she was still a child, crying on her mother's lap over something as silly as a scraped elbow. But her mother wasn't there, and neither was her father. And remembering it only made the tears fall faster and thicker.

Hermione was not able to tell how much time she spent crying like that. It had felt like years, or even centuries, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes.  Eventually, the tears stopped, and her pain was replaced by a melancholic anger and a sense of overwhelm. She still sobbed, and her fingers still dug into her shoulders, but her eyes were completely dry. She felt thirsty, like all the water had been drained from her body. She got up and thought about going back to the castle to have some water. However, she didn't want to risk getting to the tower and finding Ron and Harry still awake. She stood on that same spot, staring at the school that towered above her head, wondering what she should do next. And that was when the smell got to her. 

It was a faint, sweet smell that reminded her of the cheap incense sticks she bought once, when she first found out about Hogwarts, and being a witch had a sort of mystical ring to it. But the smell she sensed now was sweeter, stronger, more persistent, and the smoke, way thicker than the incense's. And, still, unlike the incense, it did not make her nauseous when she inhaled it deeply. On the contrary: it made her feel calm. Not happy, nor at ease – just... calm, strangely calm. When she exhaled, Hermione felt weird, like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, though she could still feel its effects on her muscles. Intrigued, she pulled out her wand and cast a dim Lumos.

The source of the smell was apparently a pink smoke that seemed to be emerging from behind a large tree, about two hundred feet away from where she was standing. If she squinted her eyes very hard, she could even make out some contours of the smoke. Suddenly, she felt a chill running up and down her spine: what if it was something dangerous? A poisonous plant; a new, strange animal Hagrid had decided to take in despite the school regulation; or even a practitioner of the Dark Arts conjuring up some horror or brewing a potion. Hermione thought about turning back, about running to the tower to get help from her friends, but she was still mad at Ron, and Harry was too busy sulking and taking sides with her boyfriend to pay attention to anything she had to say. So she sucked it up. She was a Gryffindor, after all, wasn't she?

But there was nothing behind the tree apart from a thin, blond boy sitting on the grass. In one of his hands he held a thin wooden pipe, from which the pink smoke came out. She gasped when she saw him, taken aback by everything he turned out not to be, and the skinny figure turned his head slowly to look at her.

“Fuck, Granger. I thought you were Filch”, Malfoy said. His voice sounded slightly startled, but one would never be able to infer surprise by the emptiness in his eyes. His face was completely devoid of expression.

“Malfoy...”, she breathed, and was horrified by the hint of relief in her voice. “I thought you were...” She stopped when she noticed he wasn't paying attention anymore. His eyes had drifted back to the spot they had been staring at when she found him: a dark, empty space above the grass. His lips took hold of the thin end of the pipe, and a few seconds later the pink smoke that came out of its tip was also leaving his mouth.

Slightly offended by the lack of attention, Hermione filled her lungs with the cold night air and felt her heart flutter as whatever it was that Malfoy was smoking passed through her nostrils once more. Her eyes blinked fast, and she tried her best to retain some of the unexpected feeling of detachment when she breathed out.

“If you're going to just stand there, Granger, at least put out that light”, Malfoy said, still looking at that same spot. “I don't know if you've realised, but I'm trying not to draw attention.”

“What... what is that?”, she asked, dizzily flicking out the light at the tip of her wand.

“I think it's called Moonflower.” He turned the pipe around on his fingers and shrugged. The answer raised even more doubts.

“I've never heard of it”, she admitted, more than a little embarrassed.

“It's fairly new”, he said, unknowingly reassuring Hermione of her intelligence. “I don't even know if the Ministry has had a chance to examine it yet. Blaise's new step-dad got it from this friend on Greenland, or Iceland, or whatever and is trying to get it into the British market.”

Hermione nodded, and silence befell them as she too fixed her gaze upon an empty spot in the air. She was reluctant to go away, to leave the calming pink atmosphere that surrounded her, even if that would also mean leaving Malfoy's company. She could stand his presence, just for a few more seconds, if that meant she could remain inside that bubble of relaxation. As long as he didn't speak, she could even pretend he wasn't there.

“Do you want some?” Hermione was dragged back to the real world by the tired, thick voice. “I don't mind sharing if that's what will take for you to just sit down and stop hovering over me.”

Apparently, Malfoy was as unpleasant high as he was sober. Still, she did not feel like fighting him – whether the fumes had made her docile or she was just exhausted from her previous argument, she couldn't say. Maybe it was a bit of both. “No... I... um... I think I'll go back, now”, she stuttered, making a motion towards the castle with her head.

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged. “It could help you with all the crying, you know?”

Hermione felt the calm leaving through her pores and all the blood in her body rushing up to her face, flooding her cheeks with a pale shade of red. She was slightly embarrassed by the fact that he had heard her, but that was not the main thing in her head: Hermione was angry that, for the third time that day, a man had felt in the right not to respect her emotions and her right to privacy – even if that man was someone she knew she couldn't expect any decency from. “You were listening?”, she asked in a strained voice.

“The whole school was listening”, Malfoy sneered. “But they probably thought it was just Myrtle having another one of her bad days.”

“And why didn't you say something? I'd never have stayed here if I knew you were hiding in the bushes.”

“I wasn't  _hiding_ anywhere. I was here way before you. If someone should've made their presence known, that someone is you”, Malfoy said, his voice too low and aloof for the harshness of the words coming out of his mouth. “Besides, what good would it have done any of us? If I had said something, I would've had to go back to the dorm, and you would be feeling just as bad as you are now. In an ideal world, you would not have found me, and we would both be left undisturbed.”

The truth of Malfoy's words made Hermione feel more than a little awkward. Her mouth hung open as her eyebrows tried to decide whether they were still mad or not. On one hand, she was appalled by the indelicacy of hearing someone crying in the distance and not saying a word, both because of the invasion of privacy it represented and the lack of consideration for another's feelings, but on the other... Malfoy did had a point. She certainly would've felt better if she kept on thinking she had been alone all the time, and she was sure he was not actively looking for company that night – especially her company. And yet...

“Are you going or staying?”, he asked, looking behind the tree as if to check if someone else was coming. “I really wish you'd make up your mind.”

Finally settling for an anger that wasn't directed at anyone in particular, Hermione sat on the grass beside him, her legs pulled up against her chest, and took the pipe from his hand.

She suppressed a cough when the smoke filled up her lungs and tried to exhale as naturally as possible, doing her best to mimic the behaviour of all the smokers she'd met throughout her life. It was a pathetic attempt, she knew from the way Malfoy sniggered beside her. Her eyes were up to the rim with tears when she returned the pipe to him and watched enviously as he calmly puffed out the smoke. But then they became heavy and sandy, and she found herself unable to focus.

As they passed the pipe to one another, Hermione felt her whole body relax, to a point where she couldn't decide whether she was about to float or to be dragged underground. Her mind was covered by fog: she could still see her anger, still knew she was mad at Ron and Harry, still saw the contours of the same boy she was now sharing a smoke with watching as she was tortured, but none of that seemed to matter anymore. It all felt like a film. Like a biopic of sorts: something bad that had happened to someone, but not her.

“Have you ever seen a film, Malfoy?” The pipe had been going back and forth for a while when the words left her mouth. She hadn't actually thought about what she was saying – her lips just seemed to be as loose as her muscles. “I think I'll go see one with my parents once I get them back. Yeah... A nice adventure film, like Indiana Jones or something. We've always liked watching those together.”

“What's a film?”, he asked, his usual tone of contempt made softer by the Moonflower high.

“It's like... well, it's like a photograph. Except it's longer, and bigger, and it tells a story. Oh, and it has sound! Well, the new ones, anyway. The very old ones are silent”, she explained. “God, how long has it been since the last time I saw a film?”

Malfoy shook his head and chuckled under his breath, but Hermione paid him no mind. She was busy thinking about the last time she'd gone to a cinema, about her childhood classics, about what film she would take her parents to. Contented, she placed her hands on the grass behind her back and let her whole body relax upon her arms, her eyes gazing at the stars above. A smile slowly formed on the corners of her mouth.

“What happened to your parents?”, Malfoy asked, turning to look at her, and her smile dissolved.

It took her less than she had expected to muster up the courage to answer that question – less nerve, less time. “I obliviated them”, she said in a cold monotone. “I was afraid Voldemort might hurt them, so when the war began, I obliviated them and sent them to Australia.”

Malfoy's eyes widened in as much shock as he was able to show at that moment. His face looked like it was made of stone: he didn't speak, didn't blink, didn't even seem to breathe. The pipe hung from his fingers, in the middle of the way between him and Hermione, a thin trail of pink coming out of it – it was almost over. The silence rung in her ears when a bitter joke came to mind: “Hasn't Rita Skeeter written an article about that already?”, she snorted, and he slowly turned away from her, taking the pipe to his lips and dropping it to the ground when he realized there was nothing left to smoke.

Still, they remained there, in silence, longer than either of them thought they were capable of staying in each other's presence.

“Why didn't you go with them?”, Malfoy asked, disrupting the quietness.

“What do you mean?” Hermione frowned. She had almost forgotten about their conversation.

“To Australia. Why didn't you go with them?”

The question confused her. “What for?”

“To hide.”

_And let my friends die? And let Wizarding Britain fall to shambles? And watch from afar while children were killed because of the way they were born?_ “And wait a little longer to be imprisoned and tortured by someone else?” was the answer she went with.

Hermione pulled herself up and crossed her legs on the ground, absent-mindedly caressing the scars beneath the sleeve of her sweater. She cast her eyes to the ground and pretended not to notice Malfoy staring at her moving hand, seeing through the fabric of her clothes, reading the word he knew was there.

“I'm...”, he said, then stopped. “ I never meant for things to be like this.”

“How  _did_ you think they would be?”

“I don't know.” He seemed lost, like he hadn't actually thought about it even once. “When they captured the three of you, when you were...  _there_ ... with my aunt, I wish I had... or at the castle, at the battle, I...” She knew what he meant to say, but the words seemed to fail him. “I wish none of this had ever happened.”

“Yeah. Likewise”, Hermione responded with a gloomy smile.

She would never be sure of how much time had passed until she felt Malfoy's fingers tucking her hair behind her right ear, nor his mouth gently pressed against hers. She would never be able to tell why she didn't pull back, but, instead, remained completely still, apart from the eyes that closed and the lips that parted slightly. Later, whenever she tried to remember that day, she would never know for sure how long the kiss lasted, except that it was too short, that she needed more time to take in the sweet taste of the Moonflower in his tongue, so different from the one in her own. So, when he got up in a hurry, mumbling something that was almost an apology, after breaking the kiss, she took hold of his arm and looked him straight in the eyes.

The school grounds were engulfed by silence. The only noise was the sound of air coming in and out of their lungs. Not even the wind was blowing anymore. Malfoy looked completely lost, frowning and staring at her, like he was waiting for an explanation. None came. None apart from the timid tug at his sleeve and the desperate call on Hermione's gaze. Hesitantly, his eyes scanning her face, he knelt down in front of her. One hand – the one that was still in her grasp – held up his weight on the floor, while the other was tangled on her hair, pulling her closer.

Hermione closed her eyes slowly as Malfoy's lips touched hers, his breath caressing her skin. She slid her tongue into his mouth and, with her free hand, carefully studied the path from his neck to his chest, undoing the top buttons of his shirt on the way. Part of her was still confused, wary of Malfoy's intentions, afraid of all the feelings of longing and abandonment his kiss had awaken in her. But as much as that part of her tried to scream some sense into her head, there was nothing she could do to make herself heard: when Malfoy pressed his whole body against hers, lying her on the ground and forcing her hand to move from his chest to his back, there was no voice in the world that would be able to make her stop. As far as she was concerned, at least for a moment, the whole universe had ceased to exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, that was it for Hermione and Draco, for now. Hope you liked it! I especially hope you liked the kiss part, 'cause it's the first time I've written a proper make out scene and, since I'll be delving into smut territory later, I hope I'm getting the hang of it.


	8. Sleepless in the Common Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... This is sort of a filler chapter, but it will all lead somewhere, I swear.
> 
> Keep the comments coming, guys! I really appreciate it! =)

The wand had become part of her arm. She couldn't let go of it. She opened her hand, but it wouldn't fall off. Likewise, she had lost control of her mouth, of her words. Her eyes were watery; her brow, creased. She was trying so hard not to say it, and yet the word came flying out of her mouth, not even the smallest stutter to it. “Crucio”, she cast, and the child in front of her fell to the floor, screaming and squirming. His whole body writhed in pain, and all she could do was watch. A tear dripped from her left eye and mingled with the sweat that covered her cheeks. Once more, the curse echoed on the walls, and the child bent over in agony, his legs twitching involuntarily. She did not, _could not_ understand. Didn't she have to mean it for the curse to work?  She didn't mean it. She didn't even know who that child was, and he was so small! It wasn't supposed to work! _Why was it working?_

Her lips curled into a wicked smile, and it took her all of her willpower to suppress an equally malicious giggle. Did she mean it, after all? Did she want that child to feel pain? Was she enjoying it?  _No_ , she told herself.  _No, no, no, no, no_ . The word screamed inside her head, but it wasn't enough. She felt her cheeks pulling into a larger smile. Her eyes went dry and wide. Before she could even muster the strength to stop herself, she burst into laughter – a manic laughter that she knew too well, even though she hadn't heard it that many times: it was Bellatrix Lestrange's.

Ginny woke up in a puddle of sweat. She was shaking, scared, and her eyes scanned the room for any sign of someone watching her. She'd read somewhere about people that talk in their sleep, and now she couldn't take her mind off it. Not even a decade had passed since she was possessed by Voldemort, and she feared the other students would jump to conclusions about her state of mind if they heard her screaming and laughing in her sleep. But all the other girls were sleeping, even Lucy Yang, a Muggleborn sixth-year that had been struggling with insomnia ever since she came out of hiding, on the day of the final battle. The blueish moonlight shone down upon a flask of Sleeping Draught, laying on the floor beside the girl's bed.

That would make things easier, Ginny thought, going to Madam Pomfrey and asking for a potion to ease her mind at night. But the Sleeping Draught wouldn't be enough for her. Her case was one for the Dreamless Sleep Potion. Not that it posed a problem: Ginny knew for a fact that the hospital wing was now equipped with all kinds of potions for the mind and the body, even the ones that had their usage restricted by the Ministry. However, she also knew that if she went to Madam Pomfrey for help with her nightmares, the witch would alert the Headmistress and Professor Pennyworth, who would insist she talked to them about it. Then they would alert her parents, then they would get Ron involved, and Harry... After that, it was only a matter of time until the whole school started gossiping and making assumptions, and she wasn't in the mood to handle this kind of attention. She had already had enough of that being The-Girl-Who-Broke-Up-With-The-Boy-Who-Lived.

Ginny got out of bed and, with a silent Scourgify, managed to clean up her sweat-soaked bedsheets. The same could not be said about her pyjamas – she hadn't quite mastered the art of silent spells yet, and it was impossible predict when it would be effective. She took off her flannel trousers and shirt, rolled them up and tucked them under the bed, along with her knickers. The house-elves would take care of them. The door to her side of the wardrobe creaked a little, but not enough to wake up her room mates. Slowly, and as quietly as she could, she picked up a clean set of undergarments and her school robes. She wouldn't be able to sleep again, anyway, might was well get ready for class. With that in mind, Ginny picked up the books, the quill and the parchment she had left on top of her trunk and strode off to the Common Room.

After six years of Hogwarts, Ginny Weasley knew each and every corner of the Gryffindor Tower like the palm of her hand. And, as much as the atmosphere had changed in the past couple of years in all parts of the castle, the furniture distribution in the Common Room was always a constant. So she didn't bother casting a Lumos to light the way – which would have been a better idea, since the never moving sofa was occupied by a not so frequent pair of legs she fell heavily on top of.

“Ouch!”, Dean Thomas cried out, suddenly awaken from his slumber by the weight of 122 pounds smashing his feet.

“Oh, shit!” Ginny let her book and parchment fall to the floor as she swiftly got up.

“Merlin, Ginny! This fucking hurt! Be a little more careful, would you?”, he said, sitting up to massage his feet. By the look on his face, however, Ginny reckoned he was more disgruntled by the sudden awakening than by any sort of pain. “God... It feels like the whole astronomy tower just crumbled on top of my legs.”

“Shit!”, Ginny cursed again. “I'm terribly sorry, Dean. Are you alright?”

The boy waved her away as her hands hovered upon him, looking for a way to calm him down and ease his discomfort. With his feet now on the ground, he placed his elbows on his knees and shoved his face in his hands, yawning.

“What on earth were you doing sleeping on the Common Room, anyway?”, she asked, picking up her book and parchment and taking a seat by his side.

“Your brother wouldn't stop talking – complaining that Hermione-this-and-Hermione-that.” He yawned once more. “And you  _boyfriend_ has been moaning about you non-stop for days now. I can't sleep with all that noise.”

Ginny frowned and felt the blood rush to her cheeks, partly because of the embarrassment that Harry's constant moaning about her made her feel, partly because of the anger at how Dean had used the word boyfriend. She tried to hide her face by moving forwards and placing her things on top of the coffee table that faced the sofa. “Harry is not my boyfriend anymore”.

“Yeah, well... Ron's still your brother, though, isn't he?”, Dean said, leaning back against the cushions, and immediately regretted it when he saw the look on his fellow Gryffindor's face. Had he just called her a slut? “Sorry... It was... it was just a joke. Like I said, I haven't been sleeping well lately.”

“Prick!”, Ginny responded, and mimicked the other student in leaning her head against the sofa.

“Jesus, I said I'm sorry!”, he complained. “You have a really fowl mouth, has anyone ever told you that?”

“Shut up!” Ginny threw a punch at his left arm, and Dean's serious, annoyed grimace dissolved into giggles.

“Oi, that hurt!”

“Yeah, I bet it did.” She threatened him with another punch and the two of them burst into laughter.

When finally stopped, they remained silent for a couple of minutes, their cheeks red and pleasantly sore, taking in the sudden explosion of joy and amusement none of them knew exactly where it had come from. Had they always been this comfortable in each other's company?, Ginny asked herself. She hadn't actually  _talked_ with Dean ever since she started going out with Harry. It hadn't been a conscious choice, it was just that things had started to get a little weird between them. Whenever she was around, Harry and Dean always seemed to get a little uncomfortable, like they were tiptoeing around subjects, afraid of saying something that would upset one of them. And she hadn't been alone with him in a while: if she approached him without Harry, Seamus was likely to be around, and Dean would always find an excuse to leave with his friend. Hermione had once suggested that he was in love with her, and avoided her presence out of fear of getting hurt, and, for a while, she believed it. Now, that thought came to mind once again: was he only acting like his normal self because she and Harry had broken up? 

The silence began to feel awkward.

“So...”, she started. “Were you having a good sleep on the sofa? Before I sat on your feet, I mean.”

Dean chuckled. “Yeah, it was alright... Not much happens down here this late. Granger woke me up, stomping on the stairs.”

“What? Hermione?”

“Yeah. You saw the fight, right? When she ran out of the tower, mad as hell...”

“I did, yes”, Ginny said, vaguely. She was so caught up in her own problems that she had forgotten about it already. “My brother was being a jerk...”

“He only tried to defend her.” Dean shook his head.

“Hermione can take care of herself. He doesn't have to treat her like she's made of glass.”

“I guess... Still, she overreacted, in my opinion”, he responded. “She was being way too sensitive.”

“We're all way too sensitive, lately.”

A strange darkness took over Ginny's expression. Caught off-guard by the seriousness of her words, Dean couldn't do anything but silently agree. He watched her hand move, picking on a loose thread on the hem of her robes, as she absent-mindedly stared at it.

“Her hair was really messy, you know.” Dean coughed and straightened his back, turning to look at Ginny, after a long, suffocating silence. “Do you think... maybe... she was with someone?”

“What? Hermione?” Ginny lifted her eyes and frowned at the question. She couldn't help but notice that her friend's voice now seemed strained. “Nah... Her hair's always messy.”

Dean giggled and rubbed his eyes. “No, I mean really messy. Like, okay, it was dark and I couldn't see straight, but I could swear I saw her take a twig out of it and throw it on the floor.”

“A twig?” Ginny was appalled, and yet, she was unable to hold back a chuckle.

“I'm serious! If we look for it, I bet we can find it right by the door.”

“You're mental!”

“Don't know... Maybe. Or maybe she was looking to blow out some steam after that fight.” Ginny shook her head and let out a sigh of amusement and disbelief. She averted her eyes once more and resumed playing with the loose thread. Dean was smiling and quietly examining her, but she pretended not to notice. Under his gaze, she became very aware of the fact that she was talking to an ex-lover. She feared what could he mean by the look he was giving her. “What about you? What are you doing up this late? Also looking to blow out some steam?”

Oh, Merlin, what was that? Was he hitting on her? This soon?  _Alright, we went out, but you're supposed to be Harry's friend, you prick!_ Besides, she hadn't given any signs that she might be interested in him, did she? Ginny lowered her head even more to hide the redness on her cheeks.

“I, uhm, forgot to write this paper for Slughorn”, she lied.

“Oh. What's it about?”

“It's about... the many uses of... snake... snake venom... in...”, she stuttered. She had the words all laid out in her head just a second ago, but she couldn't for the life of her remember them.

“Wow, you're a lousy liar!” Dean laughed out loud. “Thank heavens no one thought of questioning you during the war, or we would be sure to lose it!”

It wouldn't make a difference, Ginny thought. She didn't know anything about what was going on, anyway. All she ever did was wait – do her best to keep herself together, to keep others safe from harm, and wait for news that never came.

“C'mon, what's the real reason?”, Dean insisted.

She sighed. “I've been... having nightmares, lately. Just had one. And after I wake up, it's really hard going back to sleep.”

Her cheeks were burning with embarrassment, except she wasn't thinking about the possibility that Dean was hitting on her anymore. She was ashamed of her own weakness, of admitting that the Voldemort's reign had broken her just as it did everyone else. Her eyes were wet, and she felt a tear starting to make its way through her lashes. She threw her head back on the sofa trying to hold it in, but he noticed it.

“Hey, it's okay! It's okay!” Dean shuffled on his seat to get closer. “Why didn't you say so?”

“I don't know. I guess I don't want to alarm anyone.”

“Lots of people've been having nightmares after the war.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and stroke it, gently. “Have you talked to Madam Pomfrey yet?”

“Do you have nightmares?”, she asked, evading the question about her much needed visit to the school nurse. His hand felt warm on her shoulder. The thought of him making a move on her had completely fled her mind.

“Me? No, thank Merlin! The last thing I need is any memory of last year plaguing my dreams” He shook his head vehemently. “Seamus has been having some trouble with them, though. He said he had to spend a night at St. Mungo's for observation, once, 'cause the dreams were so bad he thought he was being possessed. They gave him some potions to make him feel better.”

“You've been talking to Seamus?”, Ginny changed the subject. She didn't want to give him room to inquire about her need for medical treatment again. “How is he?”

“He's fine.” Dean removed his hand from her shoulder and placed it on his right arm. “He's working at the Leaky Cauldron. Says he likes working around people and booze.” They both chuckled.  


“He's living in London, then?”

“No, still at home. He has this girlfriend in London, though. Older girl. But I don't think it's anything serious.” Dean averted his eyes. When he finished talking, Ginny noticed that he was staring at the wall in front of the sofa, though he didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular. Had something happened between him and Seamus? Was he upset about him leaving Hogwarts and having a girlfriend in London? She suddenly realized what this was all about: he felt lonely, left behind by his best friend, the closest he had to a sibling in the Wizarding world. No wonder he was coming onto her! Sure, he still had friends at school, but it must be hard being away from someone you're so close with in times like these. She had experienced some of it after her break-up, and, if it wasn't for Luna, she might've been as desperate for company as he was. Well, she wasn't going to snog him or anything, but maybe she could help take his mind of his troubles for a while.

“So... who do you think Hermione was cheating on my brother with?”, she asked, feeling a little guilty for making such conjectures about her friend. But, oh, well, she would understand. “I'm not saying that she was, but... Who do you think?”

Dean smiled once more and started to come up with names of boys he had seen other girls swooning over. After a few obviously untrue theories, they changed the subject to something else, something just as silly. They talked until the sun came up, and then Dean left for his room to change for breakfast.

When she was leaving the Gryffindor Tower, Ginny saw a twig on the floor, right by the hole that lead to the Fat Lady's portrait. She tried to contain her laughter, but ended up with a snore that made all students around her stare.


	9. How to put out a fire

_Dear Miss Lovegood, Miss Granger and Mr. Malfoy,_

_Good morning! I will be unable to attend to my duties at the library today due to a family emergency. During the past month, I trust that I have taught you a lot about the workings of a library. Therefore, I will entrust the three of you to take care of the books and keep the place running in my short absence. I do hope you are indeed up to the task, since we cannot afford another tragedy befalling our precious source of knowledge._

_DO NOT LEND ANY BOOKS WHILE I'M GONE! I WILL FIND OUT IF YOU DO, AND SEND YOU ALL TO DETENTION!_

_See you tomorrow!_

_Madam Irma Pince_

_P.S.: In case Mr. Malfoy is the only one available, please ignore the rest of this note and inform the students that the library will be closed for the day._

 

The note hung in front of the large wooden door. It was not morning anymore, Luna noticed. She had been the first one to show up, after a whole morning and half an afternoon of classes. Lots of students had probably already tried to do some research in the library throughout the day, only to find out it was completely shut.

Luna sighed.  _Oh, well_ , she told herself. She couldn't blame Hermione, even though she knew she had a free first period. She probably skipped breakfast and had some extra sleep. After all, Hermione was just telling her the other day how tired she was from all the school work. For the past two weeks, she said, she had been so crammed up in papers and tests and reports and preparing for the emotional exhaustion professor Pennyworth's support group caused her that she hardly found the time to pop up at the library. She wasn't even seeing Ron that much! That did not sit right with Luna. Hermione was very good at balancing classes, friends and extra-curricular activities. She probably had some other issue she didn't want to talk about.  _Perhaps it's the search for her parents? Oh, didn't she and Ron had a fight the other day?_ , Luna thought, _Or maybe Wrackspur_ _ts had been fogging her min_ _d_. Whatever it was, who was she to judge if her friend needed some time to herself?

As for Draco Malfoy... Well, she actually didn't know much about his whereabouts outside of the library. Maybe he had class the whole day. Maybe he got here earlier and, after reading the last part of Madam Pince's note, decided to leave. Maybe he was going to show up later...

Luna sighed again, shrugging and smiling in resignation. Taking care of the library all by herself – this was going to be quite an interesting experience.

Almost an hour passed until one student noticed that the library was no longer closed for the day and informed the rest of his peers. After that, Luna was busy as bee, running from one section to the other while trying to keep an eye on the kids on the Study Hall at the same time – and she was pretty sure that the Nargles had started hiding books in shelves they didn't belong. She chuckled, amused by the naughty creatures' typical behaviour.

When Malfoy came through the door, about two hours later, Luna's smile withered. She remembered Madam Pince's note –  _In case Mr. Malfoy is the only one available, please ignore the rest of this note and inform the students that the library will be closed for the day –_ and realized that there was probably another explanation for the books' misplacement.

“What's going on here?”, Malfoy asked, seeing Luna surrounded by children holding pieces of parchment on their hands. “Where's Madam Pince?”

“Oh, hello!”, Luna greeted. “She had to go out. Family business. Asked us to take care of the library for the day.”

A bright yellow light came shining from the Study Hall, making Malfoy wince. “I see...”

“Oh, yes!” Luna turned her head briefly to look at what had made him so startled. “Can you go check on the Study Hall?”

He nodded briefly and turned in the direction of the bright yellow light. Luna thought she saw a hint of relief in his face, but she didn't mind. She was relieved, as well, glad that she had found something for him to do so quick. The prospect of being all alone with him, sharing activities without anyone around to act as a mediator, scared her. She resumed helping students search for books with a smile on her lips.

But Luna soon found herself in Malfoy's company once more. It was after a bright reddish light shone from the Study Hall, followed by a continuous terrified scream. Luna dropped the book she was holding on the floor and rushed to the other room, already anticipating the worst – though it was hard to pin down which of the possibilities scared her the most: had some spell backfired terribly, or had Malfoy...? No, no, he wouldn't! She refused to believe it was possible and scolded herself for even considering it. He wasn't capable of something like this. Not  _him_ .

When she got to the Study Hall, she was relieved to see them all there in one piece – a group of younger students, all pressed together against a wall. Though everyone always called her Loony, Luna actually had a very good memory, and she was able to recognize all the kids that had come into the library that afternoon cowering in that corner.

On the other side of the room, however, where the students had fixed their gazes, Malfoy was fallen on the floor. He wasn't screaming anymore, but his eyes were wide open and his face was contorted in fear, his nostrils flared, letting the air in and out as fast as they could. A small fire had started to climb up his robes. It hadn't even reached knee-height and it wasn't touching his skin, but Malfoy was pulling himself backwards with both hands, desperately trying to run away.

For a second, Luna, too, was entranced by the fire. She stared at it without reaction, her eyes mirroring the red and yellow of the flames, her mind completely devoid of any thought. It was only when the kids that she was helping started swarming into the Study Hall, running into her arms in the process, that she – or at least her body – awoke to what was going on. Her left hand pulled out the wand she kept tucked behind her ear and her mouth muttered “Aguamenti”.

The water flowed heavily from the tip of her wand, extinguishing the fire and soaking up Malfoy's robes. As the flames disappeared, the Slytherin boy grew calmer. When they were completely gone, his pupils had already come back to their normal size, and his breathing got slower each second. However, he was still sitting on the ground, holding himself up with his hands, staring at that spot on his clothes.

Luna interrupted the spell and, suddenly, her mind caught up to what had just happened. She felt exhausted, as if she had strained all of her muscles at once.

“I... I think I should close the library for the day”, she told the kids on the opposite wall, putting her wand back behind her ear. “I'm sorry.”

Luna followed the children out of the Study Hall and waited for the last one to leave the library before locking the door. When she came back, Malfoy was still in the same place she had left him. After examining him at a distance, Luna passed him by and let her body fall on a wooden chair, her hands resting on her lap. 

“Was it the Fiendfyre?”, she asked after a brief silence. Her voice souded kind, soft and curious, but the exhaustion made some of the words quiver as they came out.

“What?” He turned to look at her, and she saw that his face was still contorted into a grimace.

“The Fiendfyre”, she repeated, but he didn't seem to understand. “The reason you were so scared of the flames. Was it the Fiendfyre?”

Malfoy jumped to his feet and gave an arrogant, contemptuous chuckle, far too forced in Luna's opinion. “It's fire. It can kill you. Horribly. Anyone that isn't afraid of fire is a bloody idiot.”

Letting her eyes drift to nowhere in particular, she nodded. “I suppose you're right. Although my father used to say that the Fire Fairies have a way of sensing if you're a bad person. If you've been good, they make your death as painless as they can.”

There it was again, Draco Malfoy's signature sneer. This time, it came more naturally, she thought with a sad smile.

“I know. It's silly, isn't it?”

Malfoy's eyes widened, and his chin dropped. “What? Loony Lovegood saying something is silly? I thought you believed in all this crap, like Wrackspurts and whatnot.”

“Oh, no!” Luna was appalled that Malfoy would speak of the Wrackspurts like that. “Wrackspurts are definitely real! But not the Fire Fairies, no." She tilted her head forwards, as if she was about to let him in on a big secret. "You see, my father doesn't know it, but I'm pretty sure he only made them up so that I wouldn't feel so bad about my mother.”

“Your mother?” Malfoy frowned at her.

“Oh, yes. You've heard about her, I'm sure. She was a truly brilliant witch.”

“Well... I know your mother died of some backfiring spell. It was in the Prophet at the time. But I don't remember the details, I was too young.”

That was not the answer Luna was expecting. But then again, people hardly ever gave her the answers she was expecting – about her mother, her father,  _The Quibbler_ , or anything, really.

“She used to do experiments, you see. Create new spells, things that might help us learn more about our world. It was one of her own spells. She was still figuring out the proper incantation.” She turned to Malfoy, looking him right in the eye, making him shift in his position. “I was there, watching her. I liked watching her. And then her wand... it burst up in flames. And they got to her, and there was nothing I could do besides screaming. By the time my father heard me, it was already too late.”

Malfoy looked around, still frowning, his hands fumbling in his pockets. His lips moved, but no word came from them. He didn't know what to say.

“That's why I took so long to cast the counter-spell on your robes.” She shrugged. “I always get a little nervous when I see fire.”

“Wow... I mean... Shit, I... How old were you?”

“I was nine”, she said as he pulled out a chair and sat down. “So, was it the Fiendfyre?”

Malfoy averted his eyes, studied the wooden table in front of him for a long while. “Yeah... I guess it was”, he said, still not daring to look at her.

“It must have been horrible. Losing a friend like this, I mean.”

He chuckled humourlessly. “You have no idea.” He blushed, probably realising that she did have some idea. “The flames, they took over the entire room. They were chasing Potter, and Weasley, and... and Granger.”

Luna cocked her head to the side, intrigued by how he had paused before Hermione's name, and the strange pain in his voice.

“Suppose you find this very ridiculous, don't you?”, he sniggered. “I have allowed the Dark Lord to mark me as his own, I've seen things I don't wish upon my worst enemy, but an idiot lights some fire and I'm scarred for life. Pathetic, really.”

He shook his head, grinning. Twitching her Butterbeer cork necklace with her fingers, Luna got up from her seat and walked slowly towards him. When she stopped by his side, he raised his eyes to examine her. “It's not pathetic, Draco.” She stared at him intently, her grey eyes meeting his. _We could be siblings, really_ , she thought. “We all have our scars, and I'm sure this isn't your only one. You are not one of them.” As he opened his mouth to protest and made a motion towards his left arm, she corrected herself. “I mean, you obviously _were_ one of them. That is not something you can take back. But you are not _like_ them.”

He looked at her as if she had gone completely mental. It was okay. Between the fact that Draco Malfoy was always looking for a way to make himself seem superior to others and the fact that she had spent years receiving that same look of derision from all the other students, she really didn't mind. “I'm... afraid I don't follow.”

She toyed with her necklace a little longer, not sure how to bring up the subject. It was time she did, she supposed. Still, she had trouble finding the words. She was not afraid of his answer, she was certain it wouldn't be something mean. The worst she could expect was indifference. But still...

“When I was held captive, at your house”, she murmured, “you used to bring me my meals. Was that... was that part of some plan? Did they tell you to do that?”

Malfoy shifted in his seat and looked around the Study Hall as if he were looking for an escape. For a long while, she thought he wouldn't answer, but then the word came out of his lips, a simple, short, dry word, with no addition whatsoever: “No.”

“Then... why did you...?”

He let out a heavy, laborious sigh. “I didn't want to see you starve. For fuck's sake, I knew you! You're not even my classmate, strictly speaking, you're younger than me. I was there when you were sorted!” He sounded angry. “I just... No one bothered to give you food, so I thought I might as well...”

He stopped mid-sentence. His eyes were dark and pained, and between them a deep crease gave him an air of grief.

“No one bothered to give me food... but no one cared if you did, as well?”, she asked.

“Not at first, no.” With one fingernail, Draco had started carving the table's dark wood. He wasn't writing or drawing anything in particular, just a straight line, still, he kept his eyes fixed on the spot. “After a while... when they put you in solitary... Avery told me to stop, to let you starve for a while, see if it did us any good.”

Solitary... Luna let her mind linger on the word for a moment. For most of her stay at Malfoy Manor, she had felt like she was in solitary, no matter the size of her cell. Even in the large room, the one with the stairs and the small, barred window that let in some sunlight as well as the cold and the rain, she had spent most of her days alone. Until they got to Ollivander, prisoners came and went in the interval of a day or even less, and they would hardly ever talk to her. She saw them being dragged through the door, thrown on the hard stone floor, crying, bleeding, and a few moments later someone would come to pick them up. She never knew their fates. As lonely as she had felt in that huge cell, she knew that what Draco meant by solitary was the tiny cubicle where she had spent... what?... a couple of weeks? A month? It had no window, and yet the room was damp, filled with water that dripped from a place the darkness did not allow her to see. It had no space, either. There was no way even a child would be able to lie down in there. When she was tired of standing, all she could do was sit, pulling her legs up against her chest. And, as if all of that wasn't enough, they would have starved her as well.

“See?” Tentatively, doing her best to stop her trembling, Luna placed a hand on Draco's shoulder. “You're not like them.”

There it was, again: the look of utter disbelief. This time, he seemed somewhat angry _at her_. “Lovegood, I... I let them lock you up in a cell for days, I saw them torture you, I... Merlin, they used my house as their personal prison! How can you say that?”

“You were a kid, Draco. We all were”, she responded, calmly, though she could feel the tears prickling in her eyes.

“Yes, and you didn't go about participating in torture sessions!”

“And neither did my father. Or anyone I loved. But my father sold out my friends because he was so scared he might never see me again. And he wasn't as young and naïve as we were when the war started – as we still are, in a way.” She wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel telling him these things. In one hand, he _had_ done all the horrible things he had claimed to have done, and she couldn't let it go, nor did she think it was her role to reassure him that he wasn't so bad. But on the other, she wanted to do just that, she wanted him to know that she forgave him, that everything was going to be okay. “You did what you could for me, Draco. And for that, I...”

As if he knew what she was about to say, he jumped up from his seat and wriggled free of her hand. “Don't!”, he shouted, but then lowered his voice. “Don't do that! Don't thank me! You don't have to thank me! _You have no reason to thank me!_ ”

“I know. I still want to, though.” She gave him a sad smile. “But I won't, if you don't want me to.”

Only a few seconds of silence passed by, but, gazing intently into Malfoy's expression of sorrow and confusion, she felt like years had gone by. She could feel herself getting older, and see the wrinkles beginning to creep in on the boy's face.

“I'll leave the keys on the door”, she said.

She turned her back at him and strode off to the library's door, closing it carefully as she stepped into the school's corridors. Her eyes wide open, she looked at the ceiling, blinking back a tear that insisted on falling, and trying to make sense of the conversation she'd just had. Then she heard a voice calling her name eagerly from the end of the corridor. As she turned to look, she saw Ginny coming towards her, her long, fire-bright red hair flowing behind her – the only flames that ever made her happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm not going to apologise anymore for taking so long to update. Lots of Wrackspurts around my head, I'm basically unable to do things on a regular basis. lol  
> Thank you so much for reading this far, hope you're enjoying it! You probably realised I have a knack for long dialogues and I spend too much time on characters feelings. Well, that's because... I like to do that! Like I said, this is my first fic, and going through the characters minds is, imo, the most satisfying part of doing this. Hope it's not too boring. =]  
> I will update again, I swear! Until then, leave comments, tell me what you think! (And thanks again to the ones that have already done that! <3)


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